$630m upgrade to sitarail, page-34

Enclosed a current article (original in French) about the railway Bamako - Dakar.

Below the Google Translation into English.

It seems the big billion Chinese repair and restruction solution is dead, some other options are in consideration.

This planned deal sounds interesting:

The cement producer, a subsidiary of the group owned by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, could finance the rehabilitation of some of the rolling stock - two locomotives and 70 cars - by January 2018, for about $ 6 million. In exchange, DBF would convoke Dangote between 100,000 and 500,000 tons of cement per year from Dakar to Bamako until Nigerian return on investment.

If it is possible to buy such a transport capacity for 6 m$ capex, maybe a "Plan B" for Birimian.


http://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/316694/economie/appel-doffres-reprendre-laxe-dakar-bamako/

The financing of the rehabilitation of the line linking the Senegalese and Malian capitals, Dakar and Bamako, is a real headache. An agreement with the Nigerian group could revive the machine.
   
Dakar-Bamako Ferroviaire (DBF), the structure that inherited the 1,286 km line linking the Senegalese and Malian capitals, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Dangote Cement Senegal in early July (DCS). The cement producer, a subsidiary of the group owned by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, could finance the rehabilitation of some of the rolling stock - two locomotives and 70 cars - by January 2018, for about $ 6 million. In exchange, DBF would convoke Dangote between 100,000 and 500,000 tons of cement per year from Dakar to Bamako until Nigerian return on investment.

However, both parties are far from having finalized a firm agreement. "There are still many parameters to be specified on the Malian market, in addition to the final evaluation of the cost of repairs," Dangote explains. "This strategic partnership in rail will give a more structured approach to our exports to Mali, with an optimized transport time and quantities delivered than the capacity of our trucks," argues a representative of the cement manufacturer in Dakar. received the approval of the Nigerian leadership of the group to advance this file.

A necessary project

According to Abdou Ndéné Sall, Senegalese Secretary of State in charge of the rail network, who promotes this type of agreement, several other transit companies, potential customers of rail, would also be interested.

DBF, a transitional Senegal-Malian inter-state company - a statute whose contours are not clearly defined - sees this strategy as an opportunity to get out of the rut.

For the company, there is an urgency: the traffic continues to sink as the rolling stock, but also and especially infrastructure fall into ruin. Some of them date from the initial construction of the line in the 1920s, including the Tambacounda-Kidira section, east of Senegal, to the Malian border.

There would be no more than three locomotives in circulation. When traffic is not suspended due to the rainy season, only 6,000 tonnes of freight are transported per month by DBF between Dakar and Bamako.

That is to say a small share (less than 2%) of the volume transported between the two capitals, estimated at 4 million tons per year in the Dakar-Bamako direction. As for passenger traffic, it has been suspended since 2010. Only the Bamako-Kayes section, which is crucial for rural traders, remains intermittent despite its age.

A trial gallop for DBF

For Dangote, this first agreement with DBF, if finalized, would be a trial run. According to our information, the group would consider competing to take over the full line management, which is expected to be privatized in 2018 or 2019.

A challenge for the Nigerian, more experienced in the management of truck fleets than in railway logistics. Before him, many broke his teeth. In Dakar, everyone remembers the misadventures of the trading group Advens, the Franco-Senegalese businessman Abbas Jaber. A majority shareholder since 2006 of the former Transrail group, it ended up being ousted from the concession of this line by the authorities in December 2015, on the basis of disagreement with the two states, but also with donors, whose World Bank, who preferred an industry professional.

"The major question to which the two governments must respond once and for all is the economic model of this railway. If the scheme chosen is, as for Advens, a "vertical" company, charged with both infrastructure and operation, we will inevitably go to another failure ", believes a good connaisseur of this file.

Senegal and Mali are in favor of a separation between exploitation and infrastructure, a principle accepted in the sector because of the impossibility for a private company to accept a return on investment over 30 to 40 years for infrastructures rail.

Many interested parties

But the financing of the latter by Mali and Senegal, supported by donors, is a real headache. The Chinese solution, a time envisaged, is no longer on the agenda. China Railway Construction Corporation proposed to the authorities the rehabilitation of the standard track layout - a wider gauge than the existing metric gauge - to accommodate the passage of more loaded wagons and faster and longer trains.

But the Pharaonic sums requested - 1.15 billion euros for the 633 km of the Dakar-Kidira section and 1.486 billion dollars for the 644 km on the Malian side - have deterred the authorities of both countries.

Another partnership is under discussion with the construction group consisting of Turkish Tasyapi, and YAS-RIH, from Abu Dhabi. Dakar signed a memorandum with this consortium to extend the standard track from Thiès to Tambacounda, build a multimodal platform in Tambacounda and rehabilitate the metric track from Dakar to Kidira.

But the government could again fall because of the very high costs of this ambitious project and the non-alignment of Bamako on this option.


Concerning Bolloré, some experts doubt the interest of French for this line

Then, Senegal and Mali will have to find the operator. Besides Dangote - who will have to confirm his interest if his first experience as a DBF customer proves conclusive - other groups could candidate, such as Bolloré, who already manages Sitarail and Camrail and leads the Niger loop project. But some experts doubt the interest of French for this line.

"In Abidjan and Douala, he can control the whole logistics chain from the wharf to the hinterland, but he is not the concessionaire of the port of Dakar, where he manages only the ro-ro terminal," explains 'one of them.

Brazilian groups, which had participated in the revitalization of the former Mombasa-Nairobi-Kampala colonial line, led by the Rift Valley Railways consortium, might also be interested.

Finally, the Belgian Vecturis, with whom Advens was associated from 2010 to 2016, and which manages railways in DR Congo, Angola, **on, Tanzania and Madagascar, entrusted JA with its interest in the revival of this project, provided that its economic model is clarified.

Fast and cheaper

According to Abdoulaye Lô, Director General of the National Agency of Railways of Senegal, "the cost of rail transport is between 15 and 20% lower than by road. A train takes between twenty-six and thirty hours to connect Dakar and Bamako, against two or three days for a truck, which undergoes 20 checks.

And on the environmental front, a train is equivalent to 50 trucks ". Moreover, the use of this axis by the 300 everyday large-bodied craft weighs heavily on the road infrastructure and therefore on the Senegalese state budget. The Autonomous Road Maintenance Fund (FERA) devotes no less than 70 billion CFA francs (107 million euros) each year