Ferrogrão Railroad: All About
Have you ever heard of the Ferrogrão Railroad? Well, this is an important and ambitious railroad network project that is underway in Brazil, aiming to improve and further develop the country's railroad sector.
The Ferrogrão railroad, also known as EF-170, is a project that will participate in the formation of the export corridor through the Amazon basin.
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Historical contextualization
Before actually talking about the formation of the project, how it currently stands, how the road should be built, among other important details, it is interesting to make a contextualization, addressing why the construction of this railroad is important for the region where it will be built.
In general, the history of the Ferrogrão Railroad began in 2012. At the time, the Brazilian government was interested in reducing the logistical costs of transport by 30%.
It is important to highlight that one of the main solutions for reducing logistics costs in the country is the implementation of new railroads.
In the mid-1960s, the railroad sector was precarious, neglected by the road transport modal. Since then, while investments in the road sector have only increased, the railroad sector has suffered from a long recession of resources.
This scenario changed in the 1990s, with the Privatization Program, which made the private sector start to invest heavily in the recovery of the railroad potential.
Seeing that investments have grown in recent years, the government, at the time, considered that investing in the growth of the railroad sector, implementing new routes, such as the Ferrogrão Railroad itself, could be an important solution to reduce the dependence of highways on freight transport.
As this is one of the main ways to reduce logistical costs, which was the government's objective, the idea of building the Ferrogrão railroad soon began to gain momentum.
This idea was passed on to important investors in the transport infrastructure sector, as reported by the CEO of Estação da Luz Participações (EDLP), Guilherme Quintella, on the blog Canal Agro, in 2019.
In this way, the company believed that it would be a “great opportunity for the large grain carriers in Brazil to become independent railroad operators”.
In this context, the idea of building the Ferrogrão Railroad arose, precisely so that the transport of grain, especially in the North region, could be improved, increasing production and the flow of goods.
Ferrogrão Railroad project
Speaking specifically about how the Ferrogrão Railroad project was assembled, we can make several notes.
During this period mentioned above, a feasibility report was prepared for the construction of the railroad, with the authorship of professionals from the major transport companies in the region.
Years later, in 2016, the railroad Ferrogrão was included in the PPI (Investment Partnership Program) of the federal government, so that it started to receive public resources and the work started to come out of the paper and its construction could be put into practice.
The idea of the Ferrogrão railroad is to have 993 km in length, connecting the main grain-producing region of the Midwest region, having as its starting point the municipality of Sinop, in Mato Grosso, with Porto Miritituba, located in Itaituba, Pará .
Transport and importance
As you can see, the main inputs to be transported by the Ferrogrão railroad are those produced by the agricultural sector in the Midwest and North.
Despite being one of the main grain exporters in the country, the Center-West region, especially Mato Grosso, has a flow very focused on the Southeast and South regions, mainly through the ports of Santos (SP) and Paranaguá (PR).
Still, it is important to highlight that, to reach these ports, a large part of the transport is carried out by highways, which suffer from constant logistical problems, such as delays in deliveries, poor infrastructure, high front-end costs, among others.
Therefore, the construction of the Ferrogrão railroad would serve to diversify the flow of agricultural inputs produced by this region, making exports more divided.
In addition, it would change the current panorama of rail transport, as it would reduce the dependence of this production center in relation to national highways.
Current situation of Ferrogrão Railroad
In 2020, the concession project for the EF-170, or Ferrovia Ferrogrão, was finally filed. After years of conversations, analysis and studies, the work could be started. This news left investors excited, and experts in the area believed that this construction could change the productive level of the Mato Grosso region and the railroad sector as a whole.
However, the future of the Ferrogrão Railroad is uncertain. In March 2021, the STF suspended the construction project for the work.
This suspension did not occur directly because of the work on the Ferrogrão Railroad, but because the federal government altered, through a provisional measure, the limits of the Jamanxim National Park, where the work must run.
The country's highest judicial body reported that this measure was unconstitutional, and the change could only occur through a bill of law, since this is a conservation area.
At the moment, the project is stopped at the TCU (Court of Accounts of the Union), which assesses how the process can be continued. Thus, the auction of the line, which should take place later this year, remains uncertain.
The federal government and corporations that work with the transport of grains in the region, such as those mentioned above, believe that the construction of the Ferrogrão railroad is essential to improve the flow of agricultural cargo.
The secretary of Land Transport of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Marcello Costa, recently declared that the construction of the Ferrogrão railroad would generate savings of R$ 19 billion in the coming years, just at the cost of transport freight.
Therefore, both continue fighting for the project to get off the ground and for the next steps to be taken, starting the works of the railroad.
Conclusion
Considered by many experts to be one of the most ambitious and modern projects in the railroad sector, Ferrovia Ferrogrão does not yet have a defined destination. Due to deadlocks that have occurred in recent years due to preservation issues, the project suffers from suspensions and delays in licensing.
The debate over the construction of the railroad is still on the rise at the moment, and the news is constantly changing the scenario. As we saw in the article, one thing is certain: the construction of Ferrogrão would considerably expand the flow of cargo from the Center-West region, expanding the horizons of transport to the North region. However, it is necessary to wait to find out what will be the next steps that the federal government will take so that the project comes out of the paper and begins to be put into practice.
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