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Towards the promised land with new Murmansk railway

Governor Marina Kovtun discusses the development of the Murmansk Transport Hub with federal Minister of Transport Maksim Sokolov.

”We are building not only a railway line, we are building our road to the future, our Arctic pathway”, regional Governor Marina Kovtun said at a launch ceremony of the long-awaited and much-disputed Murmansk Transport Hub.

Location

”This project is a development guarantee for the Kola Peninsula”, the governor highlighted during the ceremony which was attended by leading corportate and government representatives, among them federal Minister of Transport Maksim Sokolov.

During the event, Kovtun and Sokolov officially launched the first part of the project Murmansk Transport Hub. The initiative includes the building of a 46 km long railway line along the western shore of the Kola Peninsula. The railway line is to pave the way for several new industrial projects in the area, among them a coal handling facility and an oil terminal.

According to the Murmansk regional authorities, also a LNG reloading and regasification facility is planned built by Rosneft in the area.

Minister Sokolov stressed that the infrastructure project will constitute ”a key hub for global transport corridors between Asia, Europe and Northern America” and that it will be an important development factor not only for the Northern Sea Route, but for Russia’s general position in the Arctic, a press release from the Murmansk government reads.

However, questionmarks can still be put on the commitment of all stakeholders. According to Bloger51, the industrial companies included in the project have not yet guaranteed their investments in the new facilities.

Regional authorities have for several years worked with the transport hub project, and the initiative was ultimately included in a federal programme on transport systems development.  As previously reported, state oil company Rosneft has taken on an instrumental role in the project and plans to use the infrastructure in connection with its expanding Arctic activities.

The transport hub has a price tag of 132,2 billlion roubles, of which 56,5 billion is to be taken from the federal budget.