Facing difficulties to carry new railway auctions, the federal government speed up the negotiation with current sector concessionaries aiming at investments increasing. The scheme can generate up to BRL 16 billion in compulsory improvements in the current railway system, in exchange of contracts term extension. Now, we expect the conversations to reach an agreement next year.
Nowadays negotiations are focusing on three sector companies: América Latina Logística (ALL), MRS Logística and Ferrovia Centro-Atlântica (FCA). The government aims at spreading investments (in billion) along contracts term. This amount would be spent in increasing traffic capability, in new railway yards, decreasing urban interferences, duplications, building new extensions, trackside equipment and signaling installation and fleet extension. Most concessionaries contract expires between 2026 and 2028.
Maurício Muniz, secretary of PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) of Ministry of Planning, told Valor that among projects presented by the companies the government studies the most interesting ones. “We are talking to everyone, being ALL, MRS and FCA in a more advanced process. An important thing is to define which are the projects, because the only way to justify the alteration of the term is the need of new investments”.
ALL, the company with the largest railway network in the country announced after the merge with Rumo Logística (part of Cosan group) an investment proposal of BRL 7.5 billion, being BRL 4.5 billion granted to contract extension. BNDS and other financial supporters, between 2017 and 2019, would help gather BRL 4.5 billion to capability increase, the extension of 42 km of the Itirapina-Campinas (São Paulo) section, increasing yards and the purchase of rolling stock (cars and locomotives).
Business men involved in the merge negotiation said, at the time, that contract extension for a significant portion of the business plan is focused on the railway. “We are talking to ALL. Is going great”, stated Muniz.
According to the secretary, it is a long process, because it must go through several stages. “It is a delicate process. A company must present a project, ANTT (National Land Transportation Agency) has to validate, conditions must be negotiated again, a margin cash flow created (instrument that allows new investments a different return of the contract’s original conditions), to check demand, establish a term…Some processes go fast, others take a little longer”. “But the foresight is to close the deal soon, next year”. When asked whether negotiations would be closed in the first semester, Muniz said “Not all.”
To Muniz, railway contracts negotiation model has the same principles from the ones already obtained in other segments, such as highways and ports. In case of roads, concession groups like Triunfo Participações e Investimentos (TPI) have conquered recent additives. The company manages BR-040 highway, between Rio and Juiz de Fora (Mato Grosso) and agreed and 2014 to invest BRL 1.16 billion in exchange of the possibility to extend the contract for 17 years.
The negotiation with railways is an old demand of the sector and is normally close observed by investors. The president Dilma Rousseff used to be against the idea to extend terms because she thought contracts close during Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s term were monopolist and made difficult the access of competition to the current railway network.
But the scenario has changed since auctions of new railways are no longer attracting investors. Dilma’s concession plan in logistics was announced in 2012 and three years later no action was carried – the reason é the lack of interest of companies. In the middle of year, the program was updated by the Plateau. BL 86.4 billion, of the BRL 198.4 billion in investment projects to be carried by the private sector initiative in the country, would be spent in railway improvements. But regulatory uncertainty and bad economy moment keep perturbing concession plan of railway networks.
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