The Government is betting on the presence of at least four foreign groups at the High-Speed Train (HST) auction. French, German, Korean and Japanese companies shall participate of the project’s competition, which foresees the connection of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Campinas. In the official evaluation, there is a huge possibility of the Canadian Company Bombardier to be at the competition.
The bid for the first step of the project, when it will be chosen the Company responsible for operation and management of the bullet train, shall take place in November. The invitation for bid is ready, waiting the approval of the President Dilma Rousseff to be launched and submitted to public hearing, between February and March.
The business model for exploring the bullet train was totally remolded after the three-time failure of the invitation for bid, between 2010 and the last year. If we had not postponed the auction for the first time, we would have a winner group. “But for the Government, it is not important to have a winner at any cost,” said the Minister of Transport, Paulo Sérgio Passos. “We are talking about a project of several billion dollars with high level of complexity.”
The new model has its total rate of return of 6.32% – near the index of 6.46%, established for the last airport auction, and below the 8% defined in the last federal roads concession. The profit on the own capital invested by shareholders shall be 11.7% per year.
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The public financing, headed by BNDES, shall reach about US$12.95 billion (R$ 22 billion). “Estimates of passenger demand and the income of future concessionaires were basically preserved. If we do that, it is easier to talk to TCU,” said Passos, referring to the need of resubmitting the surveys and the invitation for bid to the Federal Court of Auditors.
In order to definitely make the bullet train feasible (a project that President Dilma considers top priority for the Government), the Government decided to pay for – at least, pay for a part – the main risks associated to demand, construction and operation. In order to decrease the currency risk, the future concessionaire can borrow some money in Reais, assured by the National Treasure. The resources can be used, including the purchase of imported equipment such as locomotives, coaches and communication systems.
Generally, BNDES financings – for hydroelectric plants or for the new airport concession – are restricted to acquisition of national equipment. The bullet train shall not be subject to this restriction. Therewith, the future operator of the bullet train shall be able to use the bank’s resources – a total amount of US$12.95 billion (R$ 22 billion), probably something about US$2.94 billion (R$ 5 billion), since the remaining shall be destined for civil works – to purchase in cash the necessary equipment abroad, protecting itself from eventual Real devaluations from the purchase moment to delivery of the goods.
Since the loan payment will be made in local currency, the Government believes that it spares the operator from paying much more because of Dollar’s variation.
Currency issue is only one of the three risks mitigated by the Government regarding this new model. Another risk is related to construction, a motif of discrepancies between official projections and the private party about the investment necessary for bullet train works. With this changes, Etav – state Company that shall operate immediately after the first auction – will contract an execute project of engineering. Estimates for the bullet train works varies from US$20 billion (R$ 34 billion), amount frequently mentioned by the Government until last year, to more than US$29.42 billion (R$ 50 billion), which were mentioned by contractors interested in run the works.
For the minister, the executive project will bury this kind of controversy and it will allow the contractor consortium to be totally aware of how much it shall spend to execute the entire HST infrastructure and which will be its gains for it. “This discussion will have an end,” states Passos.
The new format shaped by the Government divided the auction in two steps. In the first step, it will be chosen the operator and technology for the bullet train. The contract’s term shall expire in 40 years and the express travel time (with no intermediary stops) between Rio and São Paulo shall be 99 minutes. According to the agenda foreseen, the train shall be running in 2019.
Approximately one year after the first bid, it shall be made a new competition to define the group responsible for the civil works and for the exploration of the real estate potential of the stations’ surroundings. The contractor group shall lease the infrastructure for the operator.
According to the previous model, the lower tariff for Rio-São Paulo (for the Economy Class) express stretch shall award the bid, which budget was stipulated in US$117.17 (R$ 200). This maximum tariff will be kept – updated by the current inflation –, but its purpose it is only avoid that the future concessionaire is totally free for define the travel prices, which means that it can make a sales promotion and collect less money, but always within the tariff’s ceiling binding.
However, ceiling binding will be no longer used as a criterion for defining who will award the auction. According to this new model, the first competition shall be awarded by the group offering the highest amount granted for the relation passenger/kilometer traveled.
This indicator shall be taken as a criterion because the bullet train will travel on several different routes – for example, Campinas-São Paulo or São José dos Campos-Rio. Effectively, each passenger shall cost a minimum amount over traveled kilometer, and the winner will be who offers the highest premium based on this fee, which is not defined yet.
In order to decrease uncertainties regarding the future demand, which will avoid that foreign operators give up participating the auction due to the passengers volume below the number established by the survey, the government also decided to take part of the risk. The concessionaire responsible for operating and managing the bullet train shall pay, as a granting, only the amount referred to the number of passengers effectively transported by the system throughout the concession contract.
If the demand is below the 46 million passengers estimated for 2024, or below the 69 million expected for 2034, for example, the concessionaire shall pay to the Government only for the amount really checked. However, the payment to the Government shall be always executed in accordance with the relation passenger/kilometer traveled specified on the proposal that won the auction.
With this systematic aiming to increase the demand risk, other possibilities, such as extending the contract’s term for more than 40 years in case of fewer passengers than previously expected, were rejected. The Government also believes that it became unnecessary to repeat the scheme adopted in the previous bid, in which the interest rates for BNDES financing were connected to the demand.
For the minister, the new model shall allow the participation of companies interested in the first step of the bid (operators), and shall attract other groups for the second phase (contractors). “French (represented by Alstom), German (Siemens), Japanese (Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Toshiba) and Korean (Hyundai and Samsung) groups are, for sure, interested,” says Passos.
According to him, the Korean group – which was ready to offer a business proposal on the first try to auctioning the bullet train and had cancelled the consortium with Brazilian companies during the bid process – is back with a new composition. The information I had is that they are already organized in a different way.
According to Passos, the meeting with
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