Russia plans to build the world’s longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia.
A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the U.S. will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the U.S.
The Bering Strait tunnel will cost $10 billion to $12 billion and the rest of the investment will be spent on the entire transport corridor, the plan projects. The tunnel would contain a high-speed railway, highway and pipelines, as well as power and fiber-optic cables.
Japan, China and Korea have expressed interest in the project, with Japanese companies offering to burrow the tunnel under the Bering Strait for $60 million a kilometer, half the price set down in the project.
Folks at Bloomberg seem to have beaten everyone to this story. Terrific potential, of course, for raw materials from Siberia and Sakha.
Thanks, Tom Moran
Wow… that means I would theoretically be able to go all the way from Portugal to the most southern point of the American continent, always by land transport… it is an abstract thought (the distance would be huge), though a very interesting one.
Only 2 remarks for this one – though it is interesting and probably will happen for a number of engineering and commercial reasons:
1. It will be possible to drive to Irkutsk and fish Lake Baikal for one of those 150 lb. trout. Will the Alaskans let you bring one back into the country?
2. #19 knows little about tunnel construction, pipelines, railroads – apparently anything to do with logistics and traffic – not even worth debating. No surprise the Japanese are coming in low; but, that low?
Why not take dirt and rock from tunneling through some of the mountain passes that it’s goign to take to get to Fairbaks fromt he bridge and dump it into the water and make a 60 mile land bridge between the 2 continents, if mad walked across it during the last ice age, it shouldn’t be very deep and the rail like you use to move all of this earth could be put to work right away, it is a no brainer, make a rail line and fill in a sixty mile stip 1 mile wide of somewhat shallow water and boom a real land bridge! Either that or make an underwater train to avoid the ice completely.
History provides us with several examples of “monster projects” such as the proposed Bering Straits Tunnel. See the Suez and Panama Canal, and more recently the Channel Tunnel between France and Great Britain, all of which are still going strong and prove extremely useful.
Yet each of these projects proved a major disaster for the inital investors, because when they thought were buying a right to cash in on commercial traffic via a particular canal or tunnel, it turned out they had in fact paid for the right to be liable for unknown or misrepresented building costs which invariably rocketed way over and above what they were gullible enough to believe in the prospectus.
This age-old principle has proved itself time and time again.
We must be particularly wary when Russia is involved.
Viktor RAZBEGIN of the Russian Economy Ministry tells us not to worry because “the governments will act as guarantors for private money”.
A century ago more than a million French households massively invested in Russian government, infrastructure, utilities, and railway bonds.
They all came with a Russian government guarantee.
Not a single one has ever been paid back.
Today the Russian Federation still refuses all form of contact with 400000 present day bondholders. The total amount outstanding is in excess of US$80 billion.
How could anyone trust Mr. RAZBEGIN and his chiefs?
Mr. RAZBEGIN, before issuing new worthless Russian government guarantees you must first deliver on the outstanding ones.
To avoid losing ALL your investment please read the following INVESTOR ALERT below. This is not rhetoric. This is present-day economics.
RUSSIAN INVESTOR ALERT
French holders of Russian government bonds remind investors that the Russian Federation is still in default today (April 2007) on their estimate of some US$ 90 billion owed to them since the Bolshevik, then the Soviet, and now the Russian Federation governments have all unilaterally repudiated Tsarist debt and refused any form of contact or dialogue with their legitimate bona fide creditors.
They also remind investors that in its Sep. 15th 2006 report entitled “Governance matters: a decade of measuring the quality of governance”, the WORLD BANK has rated Russia’s governance comparable to that of Swaziland, Zambia and Kazakhstan. Russia came 151st out of 208 countries in terms of (…) accountability, quality of regulatory bodies, and rule of law, (…). In particular, rule of law (i.e. the courts and the quality of contract enforcement) was judged as effective in Russia as it is in Ecuador, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Nicaragua, East Timor, and China’s ability to control corruption was judged similar to Russia’s.
On February 26th 2007 the St. Petersburg Times, quoting a report from Vedomosti, wrote that “Surgutneftegaz managers covertly hold 72 % of the secretive oil firm” and that Deutsche UFG had had to “raise its estimate number of outstanding shares from less than 26 billion to (…) 43 billion” which “implies a 40% dilution in the value of the stock”.
In Paris on April 3rd 2007 to launch the merged NYSE-EURONEXT entity Mr. John Thain, the New York Stock Exchange CEO, warned that he was “very concerned about the quality of corporate governance, the transparency of company financials and the protection of minority shareholders. A number of Russian companies raise serious questions around these issues.”
Despite these findings, and the main rating agencies’ knowledge that Russia is in default on US$ 90 billion of Tsarist debt, Russia is rated “INVESTMENT GRADE” whereas it should clearly be in “SELECTIVE DEFAULT”.
French bondholders intend to pursue their claim until full settlement at present value, by any legal means and in any jurisdiction they deem appropriate.
EVERY POTENTIAL INVESTOR IN RUSSIA MUST BE MADE AWARE OF THESE RISKS.
FRENCH CREDITORS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST ANY FORM OF INVESTMENT IN A COUNTRY WHOSE SOLVENT GOVERNMENT HAS IN THEIR VIEW SYTEMATICALLY REFUSED TO FULFIL ITS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, REFUSES ALL CONTACT AND DIALOGUE WITH ITS LEGITIMATE BONA FIDE CREDITORS, AND REFUSES TO DISCLOSE LIABILITIES WORTH US$ 90 BILLION.
April 2007
this is a good idea but #24 is right if russia wants to give governmental guarentees they need to follow up on the guarentees they gave out before specifically if russia is stupid enough to cheat an entire country out of 90 billion dollars they would have to be especially stupid to try to get the major super power of the world to get us to lend them 65 billion and further more #19 in his or her 5 point yes its a good idea to build tunnels or bridges to all of those vacation spots but think about it 3,700 mile compared to 5500 or 2502 miles there is a lot more space between Fiji,the Canary islands,Hawaii and tokyo