The rise in prices for building materials led to the cancellation of major tenders in road construction sphere

The wording “the definition of the supplier has been canceled” appeared more often where the price of the lot exceeded 100 million rubles, and several tenders with an initial price of more than a billion rubles remained unplayed.

Yekaterina Maksimova

According to rough estimates, over the past three months, about 110 road tenders have been canceled for a total amount of more than 60 billion rubles. Which is almost twice as much normal for the sphere road construction annual adjustments.

Several large auctions (in the amount of 1 billion rubles) were canceled by the largest customer - the Federal Highway Agency (hereinafter - Rosavtodor).

In the spring, road contractors, for example, did not get the following large lots: the overhaul of the bridge over the Volkhovets River on the M-10 highway (1.034 billion rubles), the overhaul section of the R-119 highway in the Lipetsk Region (1.4 billion rubles), the section of the federal highway A -376 in the Khabarovsk Territory (1.9 billion rubles), overhaul of a section of the M-2 highway in the Oryol Region (2.2 billion rubles). The wording of the largest canceled tender literally sounds like this: “Overhaul of the A-114 Vologda - Tikhvin highway - the R-21 Kola highway on the section km 85+000 - km 115+400 in the Vologda region. Stage 2” (7.2 billion rubles).

Only at the end of spring and only large road construction projects were canceled by federal customers for a total amount of about 13.7 billion rubles.

With a total estimate of almost 6 billion rubles, tenders with a more modest price threshold - from 100 million rubles to 1 billion rubles - also hung in May.

Basically, this is the repair of intra-regional highways and sections of federal highways. So, in the last month of spring, the largest cancellations in this price category were the overhaul of public roads in the Perm Territory (977 million rubles), work on the Don highway within the boundaries of the Rostov Region (864.3 million rubles), the overhaul of a section of the R- 119 in the Orel region (695.5 million rubles).

The director of the Dormost association, Kirill Ivanov, suggested that the flow of cancellations was due to the fact that estimates for large facilities were made up before a sharp rise in the cost of building materials. “Most likely, due to price fluctuations, the auction ended up with irrelevant pricing. And now customers are adjusting the estimates,” commented expert Ivanov. He also recalled that the lots associated with road construction do not depend on the season.

One of the founders of a large road company in Moscow, who asked not to be named, supported the version of the director of the Dormost association. “Back in March, tenders are usually won for current road repairs - asphalting, patching. I sympathize with those road builders who then became a contractor. Since the beginning of spring, estimates have not beaten with reality by at least 20-30%. Estimates for large road construction projects definitely need to be adjusted”, - the road builder believes.

Novye Izvestia clarified in Rosavtodor the reason for the cancellation of the purchase of large tenders. They referred to the release of a number of legislative documents. In particular, the federal road agency mentions the letter of the Ministry of Economic Development dated May 17 "On the main parameters of the scenario conditions for the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for 2023 and for the planned period of 2024 and 2025."

Rosavtodor stressed that the current legislation (law on public procurement) was not violated. Moreover, the press service of Rosavtodor told Novye Izvestiya that the two largest tenders, which were canceled in May, will return to the road plan.

“Currently, the tender for the overhaul of the section of the A-114 Vologda-Tikhvin highway (km 85-km 115) has been re-published (05/25/2022). Re-placement of tender documentation for the overhaul of the section of the M-2 "Crimea" highway km 422-km 437 in the Oryol region is planned for June this year", - the response to the request says.

The lot with the section of the A-114 highway was indeed re-posted on the public procurement website on May 25. At the same time, the price of the contract has not changed by a single ruble and still stands at 7.2 billion rubles. “We draw your attention to the fact that the cancellation of purchases will not affect the quality of work and the timing of their implementation”, - Rosavtodor assured.

Recall that the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation in May provided the government with an important document - "On the main parameters of the scenario conditions for the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for 2023 and for the planned period of 2024 and 2025." The agency has updated the recession forecast of the Russian economy and predicts that in 2022 GDP will decrease by 7.8%. This is the worst recession after the global financial crisis in 2009.

On June 2, Vladimir Putin said that the pace of road construction should not slow down. The President instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to approve a plan for road construction until 2027 in the amount of about 13 trillion rubles. Putin said that at least 85% of Russia's backbone road network should be brought back to normal within the next five years.