When it comes to infrastructure, A-Property has been lucky again with Mechel blazing the trail – the Elginskoye coal mine is connected to the Baikal-Amur Mainline (one of Russia’s largest transportation conduits that runs parallel to the Trans-Siberian railway) via the Elga-Ulak feeder line, 321-kilometer long. Related: Oil Rallies Despite String Of Bearish News Ramping up production and processing in itself would not be enough – the produced coal needs to find its way towards the Asia Pacific market and needs dedicated rail conduits to get the crude from landlocked Yakutia to the Pacific coast. Even at the heyday of Mechel’s ambitious plans, the company planned annual production to plateau at some 30 mtpa, so the new owner’s plans have surpassed all previous expectations. To this end A-Property wants to build a new mining and processing plant with a 1 st phase nominal capacity of 32mtpa (by 2021) which would be increased with the project’s 2 nd phase to 45mtpa by 2023. The new owners of Elginskoye intend to invest $2 billion into the coal mine, bringing total production from its current level of roughly 5 million tons per year to 45 mtpa, which would make it the third-largest mine globally in terms of annual output. Yet the coal depression of 2019/2020 brought Mechel’s odyssey with the Elginskoye mine to an end. Luckily for Mechel, its main lenders were state-owned banks that turned out to be rather cooperative vis-à-vis the company, agreeing to a 5.1 billion restructuring deal in 2017. Between 20 Mechel’s debts doubled from $5 billion to $9.6 billion, further aggravated by unnecessary acquisitions and the post-2014 economic stagnation of Russia. Mechel’s market capitalization was further weakened by then-Prime Minister Putin’s repeated rebukes against the firm’s alleged practices of overpricing coal supplies to the domestic market. Having accumulated a whole array of assets in the country’s Far East in the Golden Era of the 2000s, the financial crisis of 2008/2009 has crippled its finances and launched a decade-long history of debt restructuration. Mechel is one of the ultimate survivors of Russia’s energy scene. Now one of the most peculiar developments in Russia’s coal was the recent takeover of the Elginskoye mine with 2.2 billion tons in total reserves, sold by Mechel to A-Property, a company headed by Albert Avdolyan with no previous exposure to large-scale energy projects and a heavy background in telecommunications/IT. Yet up until now Russia’s coal industry was functioning in a conventional way, whereby both production and exports were carried out by coal-focused companies, with little to no interference from firms from other segments. The Federal Statistical Office has more data available on prices here External link.It might not be a secret to anyone that Russia’s coal industry has been pivoting towards Asia – domestic utilization of the country’s vast coal reserves is stagnant at best, however its exports towards China, Japan and other Asia Pacific consumers have been increasing at a constant rate, recurring crises notwithstanding.
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The Economist also uses a “gratifyingly simple” way of calculating purchasing-power parity by using the price of a Big Mac. According to the January 2019 Big Mac Index External link, the Swiss must pay $6.45 for the same burger that would cost $5.58 in the United States, meaning the franc was overvalued by 18.7%. On average, total household consumption expenditure in Switzerland is around 60 percentage points higher than the European Union average, according to Eurostat figures External link.ĭespite those expenses, some of the highest salaries in the world mean the inhabitants of Zurich and Geneva enjoy considerable purchasing power: they rank second and fourth worldwide on this indicator, sandwiched by Los Angeles and Miami, UBS found.Īs a comparison, whereas a worker in Cairo, Egypt, would have to spend some 133 working days before being able to buy the latest iPhone, a worker in Zurich only has to wait 4.7 days, UBS says. In these cities, rent on a small apartment of two bedrooms can easily exceed $2,000 per month, while compulsory health insurance (at least $335 per month), transport costs (average $468 per month) and groceries (average $458 for a single person) quickly chip away at your salary. But do the people earning a Swiss wage see these sky-high costs the same way?Ī study by the UBS bank published in May 2018 found that Zurich and Geneva top the list of the world’s most costly cities, ahead of Oslo, Copenhagen, and New York. This content was published on Aug 21, 2020Switzerland is eye-wateringly pricey.
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