Construction companies have been given permission to start works on a 30–35 kilometre stretch of the Rail Baltica railway line project in Latvia, RB Rail AS Chief Financial Officer Ojārs Daugavietis said on Monday in an interview with TV3’s programme 900 Seconds.
He explained that of the approximately 50–55 kilometres of the Rail Baltica project in Latvia for which funding is available, around 30–35 kilometres have already been handed over to contractors so that construction work can begin.
Daugavietis noted that Latvia has changed its priorities in implementing the project and is currently focusing on building the main line, whereas initially work began with the development of the Riga loop, which is technically the most complex section of the project. “Is the Riga loop a bad investment? I think we will get to the Riga loop sooner or later,” he said.
The RB Rail CFO also expressed the view that an additional bridge over the Daugava River in Riga will definitely be needed, as the capacity of the existing railway bridge is unlikely to be sufficient to ensure the required traffic intensity. “To avoid train congestion, we will need that bridge sooner or later in any case,” Daugavietis said.
He added that all three Baltic states currently have around 4.5 billion euros available for the project:
Latvia has 1.5 billion euros, Lithuania 1.6 billion euros, and Estonia 1.2 billion euros.
Daugavietis also pointed out that in the next EU multiannual budget planning period, 51 billion euros is earmarked for transport investments under the Connecting Europe Facility, compared with 25 billion euros in the previous period. “We estimate that in the next period, up to 2034, Rail Baltica could receive roughly twice as much funding as it has so far,” he said.
As previously reported, the Rail Baltica project envisages the construction of a European-standard gauge railway line from Tallinn to the Lithuanian–Polish border, enabling the Baltic states to be connected by rail to the rest of Europe. In the Baltic states, a new 870-kilometre-long European-gauge (1,435 mm) railway line is planned, with a maximum train speed of 240 kilometres per hour.
According to RB Rail, the cost of the first phase of Rail Baltica in the Baltic states could reach 14.3 billion euros, of which 5.5 billion euros would be in Latvia. However, there is potential for savings of up to 500 million euros through optimisation of technical solutions, as well as other possible savings.
Total project costs, according to the cost–benefit analysis, could reach 23.8 billion euros across the Baltic states. In a previous cost–benefit analysis conducted in 2017, the total cost of the project was estimated at 5.8 billion euros.
RB Rail is a joint venture of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, established to coordinate the implementation of the Rail Baltica project. The company’s shareholders are Latvia’s Eiropas dzelzceļa līnijas, Estonia’s Rail Baltic Estonia, and Lithuania’s Rail Baltica Statyba.
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