OTEKO coal terminal in Taman lowered its coal transshipment tariffs for Q2 2024 from 32-38 USD/t to 18-19 USD/t. However, export shipments from Kuzbass to remain unprofitable, so the decline in coal exports will continue and infrastructure capacity will remain idle. Coal rail shipments to Taman in January-April 2024 may fall short of 7.6 mio t (-82% y-o-y).
With international market prices falling to the level of 2015-2016, the transshipment rate and railroad tariffs should be in line with the level of those years, but OTECO’s proposed rate exceeds by 2 USD/t and the railroad tariff is higher by almost 11 USD/t. On top of that, from March 1, 2024, an export duty has been added to coal miners’ costs. Given these factors, the acceptable level of rates is estimated at 12-15 USD/t.
On March 28, the Russian government criticized OTECO for the inflated rates. The Federal Antimonopoly Service found in OTEKO’s actions signs of setting unreasonable tariffs for coal transshipment, and the company was ordered to develop and approve within a month a commercial policy, which should determine the procedure for calculating the tariff at an economically justified level, taking into account the average profitability of the industry and the volume of transshipment at the level of 2023.
Requests for transportation to the terminal account for slightly more than 1% of the volume shipped last year (about 2.5 mio t per month). Underutilization of this direction caused by the impossibility to export coal through Taman in Q1 2024 resulted in a loss of about 0.56 billion USD for coal producers.
Due to the high transshipment costs in February-March coal companies stopped sending cargoes through OTEKO terminal in Taman. Total coal shipments to southern ports in Q1 2024 dropped to 2.9 mio t (-4.9 mio t or -63% y-o-y). Moreover, 4.9 mio t of material is lost for the export market, as it can not be redistributed to other directions (North-West, Far East and border crossings).
In 2023, the total volume of coal handled by OTECO, owned by Michel Litvak, amounted to 25.1 mio t (-4.9 mio t or -15% y-o-y).
Source: CAA
