MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. The cargo, which may be taken by the Northern Latitudinal Railway (NLR) to ports of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), will amount to 25 MTPA (million tons per annum) by 2032, Ilya Chernov, running the Arctic infrastructure projects department at the Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic, said.

"A heavy infrastructure project like the Northern Latitudinal Railway will mean we will cut the distance by 700 kilometers and connect the Sverdlovsk and Northern Railways. We assume that by 2032, almost 25 million tons of cargo is the amount we will be able to deliver," he told a meeting at the Federation Council.

In November 2022, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin announced the Northern Latitudinal Railway was suspended, saying the implementation may resume after the implementation of the Eastern Polygon and the Murmansk Railway hub projects are implemented.

The Northern Latitudinal Railway is 686 km long. Investments in the project are estimated at more than 230 billion rubles ($2.9 billion). The railway should become an element of a unified Arctic transport system and infrastructures that ensure development of the Russian Arctic's natural resource potential.