Faced with the difficulties in holding new railroad auctions, the federal government accelerated negotiations with the current concessionaires in the sector with the objective of boosting investments. The plan can generate up to BRL 16 billion in mandatory improvements to the existing network in exchange for extending the terms of the contracts. Now, the expectation is that there will be a conclusion of the conversations already next year.
Currently, negotiations are concentrated on three companies in the sector: América Latina Logística (ALL), MRS Logística and Ferrovia CentroAtlântica (FCA). The government's intention is for investments on a billionaire scale to be diluted over the term of the contracts. This amount would be used to expand traffic capacity, build new yards, reduce urban interference, duplication, build new branches, install track and signaling equipment and even expand the fleet. Originally, concessionaire contracts mostly expire between 2026 and 2028.
Maurício Muniz, secretary of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) of the Ministry of Planning, told Valor that the government is studying, among the projects presented by companies, those that are really interesting. “We are discussing with each one of them, and ALL, MRS and FCA are in a more advanced process. One important thing is to define what the projects are, because changing the deadline is only justified when you need new investments, ”he says.
ALL, the company with the largest network in the country, announced after the merger with Rumo Logística (from the Cosan group), an investment proposal of R$ 7,4 billion, R$ 4,6 billion of which conditioned to the contractual extension. This last amount would be disbursed with the help of the BNDES and other financing sources from 2017 to 2019 to increase the duplication capacity of 42 kilometers of the Itirapina-Campinas (SP) stretch, expand yards and purchase rolling stock (wagons and locomotives).
The executives involved in negotiating the merger declared, at the time, that the contractual extension was a relevant part of the business plan for the railroad. “We are discussing with ALL. It is advanced”, says Muniz.
According to the secretary, the work is extensive, because it needs to go through different stages. “It's a fine tuning. The company has to present a project, the agency [Agência Nacional de Transportes Terrestres, ANTT] validates it, the conditions have to be renegotiated, elaborate a marginal cash flow [instrument that allows new investments a return different from the original conditions of the contract ], check demand, what will be the deadline…
Some advance quickly and others take longer,” he says. “But the forecast is to close soon, next year”, she says. Asked if the negotiations would be concluded in the first semester, Muniz said that "not all".
For Muniz, the model for renegotiating railroad contracts follows the same idea as those already obtained in other segments, such as highways and ports. In the case of roads, concession groups such as Triunfo Participações e Investimentos (TPI) recently won amendments. The company manages the BR040, between Rio and Juiz de Fora (MG), and agreed in 2014 to make investments of R$ 1,16 billion in exchange for the possibility of extending the contract for 17 years. Other companies, such as CCR (which has Andrade Gutierrez and Camargo Corrêa among the controllers), have similar negotiations with the government in this case, regarding the Presidente Dutra highway.
The renegotiation with the railroads is an old demand in the sector and is usually closely watched by investors. President Dilma Rousseff used to be against the idea of extending deadlines, considering that contracts signed during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso era were monopolistic and made it difficult for competitors to access the existing network.
But the view changed after the realization that auctions for new railroads are not attracting investors. Dilma's logistics concession plan was announced in 2012 and, three years later, no auction was held due to lack of interest from companies. In the middle of this year, the program was updated by Planalto. Of the package of R$ 198,4 billion in investment projects to be led by the private sector in the country, R$ 86,4 billion would be generated in improvements to the railways. But the regulatory uncertainty and the bad moment of the economy continue to hinder the plan of concessions of the iron meshes.
By Fábio Pupo and Lucas Marchesini
Source Valor Econômico
