Russia Railways to buy railway to Mechel's Elga coal deposit

As the Kommersant has found out, the Government the discusses sale of the railway spur Ulak-Elga to the Elginsk coal deposit to Russian Railways for 50-70 billion rubles. It could help Mechel to pay a part of its net debt, which has reached $9 billion. But Russian Railways doesn’t have money for this and state banks are not ready to credit the deal. But the Government still promises “not to leave Mechel in the lurch” and to grant it state guarantees for the refinancing of a part of the debt.

On Friday, the First Vice Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov held a meeting on the Mechel situation, sources of the Kommersant told. According to them, the main owner of Mechel, Igor Zyuzin, representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finance and creditors of the company (VEB, Sberbank, VTB and Alfa-bank) were there.