Northern Latitudinal Railway

The Northern Latitudinal Railway (NLR; Северный широтный ход) is a Russian railway line previously under construction (construction is currently suspended) in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. It is 707 kilometres long, along the Obskaya - Salekhard - Nadym - Novy Urengoy - Korotchaevo route, which should link the western and eastern parts of the autonomous region, linking the Northern Railway in the east with Sverdlovsk Oblast. The project is run jointly by the Government of Russia, the governments of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, PJSC Gazprom, JSC Russian Railways, and Development Corporation JSC. The construction coordinator of the railway is the Federal Agency for Rail Transport (Roszheldor). Construction of the NLR is planned to be carried out from 2018 to 2022. The estimated volume of traffic at completion is 24 million tons (mainly gas condensate and oil cargo). Initially, the highway was supposed to be laid by 2015, but due to the lack of a budget solution, the project completion dates were repeatedly postponed. In February 2017, the construction was announced to be completed in 2023. The project cost was estimated at 239 billion Rubles. In November 2022, it was announced that the government had suspended this project in favor of expanding rail eastward.

To date, the project for the potential continuation of the infrastructure construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway further east to the seaport of Dudinka, with subsequent interfacing with the Norilsk railway, has received the designation as the «eastern shoulder» of the NLR or the «NLR-2» project.