Rail Baltic Estonia CEO Anvar Salomets believes that delaying completion of the rail line will reduce technical risks but could increase costs due to inflation.
Salomets emphasized that the previous baseline schedule, which set a completion deadline of 2030, assumed that everything would go according to plan at precisely the right time.
"Accordingly, Rail Baltic Estonia believes that extending the deadline by two years for the Tallinn–Pärnu section and four years for the Pärnu–Ikla section will reduce technical and scheduling risks. The extended timeline will also reduce (or largely mitigate) the risk of price increases resulting from an overheated market," Salomets said.
The main technical risk mitigated by the two-year extension for the Tallinn–Pärnu section is the settling of the railway embankment.
The extension also reduces scheduling risks associated with the complexity of handing over construction sites, ongoing delays in signing the contract for the control and signaling system and the extensive testing and commissioning process.
"It is also important to emphasize that a somewhat longer timeline provides an opportunity to optimize engineering solutions through the design process and reduce investment costs," Salomets noted.
However, he acknowledged that a longer timeline could increase risks related to inflation and securing funding on time. All sections will require timely funding in the coming years to ensure that the respective 2032 and 2034 deadlines are met.
In September, the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania confirmed in a joint statement that the rail line running through the three Baltic states would be completed in 2034, rather than the previously agreed deadline of 2030.
Under Estonia's national plan, the Tallinn–Pärnu section is to be completed by 2032 at the latest, the Soodevahe–Muuga section by 2033 and the Pärnu–Ikla section by 2034.
According to the original plans, Rail Baltica was supposed to be completed in its entirety by 2026.
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