RUSAL to buy Bogoslovsk power plant to keep aluminium plant working (updates)

 

 

"A solution to the problem should be found, two documents should be negotiated - an agreement between the region and the RUSAL Company, the Complex Energy Systems, the Federal Power Network Company of the Unified Energy Systems, the Interregional Power Distribution Company and the Energy Ministry. I pin high hopes that this will not be just signatures, but efficient agreements, which will improve the situation and will allow the plant to develop," Putin underlined.

 

 

"Meanwhile, we agreed that the Complex Energy Systems (Viktor Vekselberg owns the company) and the RUSAL Company will sign a separate agreement on the terms of the sale of the electric power plant to the RUSAL Company so that RUSAL could modernize the electric power plant and could get the chance to not to fire the workers and could modernize the plant in the future," the premier remarked.

 

 

Meanwhile, "the Interregional Power Distribution Company, which is occupied with regional power grids, will pass its power grids to the federal power grid company and will pay the costs to maintain the power grid," Putin said. "It is not far, this is only 1.5 kilometres away and the expenses are low. But these expenses should be taken into account by regional authorities not to shoulder the expenses on the enterprise to maintain the power grid in the region," the prime minister added.

 

 

"Finally, I noted that local energy carriers are supplied to the electric power plant and this is also one of components of the whole scope of work - competitive prices should be guaranteed, and if the enterprise cannot do it, it should ponder over the supplies of energy carriers from other regions," the prime minister added, noting that a compromise should be found.

 

 

The prime minister recalled that an official from the regional liaison office of the United Russia chairman in the Sverdlovsk Region drew his attention to this problem at the enterprise. "The problem is linked with the fact that the complex of enterprises created back in the Soviet times was divided, and this is the most important component of the aluminium production," he said. "Our electric power industry began to work independently, the electric power tariff for enterprises went up from 1.45 to two roubles for a kilowatt recently - this is a sharp growth for the aluminium enterprise, which became loss-making," the prime minister stated.

 

 

Meanwhile, workers of the Bogoslovsk aluminium plant, which are under the threat of dismissal, collected 800 signatures in protection of their plant. The plant's trade union organized the signup campaign to this effect, the information department of the Sverdlovsk governor told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

 

 

At the beginning of this week at a meeting with the chiefs of the public liaison offices of the United Russia chairman the chief of the liaison office in the Sverdlovsk Region told Putin that the enterprise is on the verge of shutdown. The prime minister pledged to settle the situation. It was earlier reported that Oleg Deripaska's RUSAL Company, which owns the plant, is planning to halt some part of the production, then probably to shut down the plant at all. RUSAL noted that the aluminium production at the Bogoslovsk plant turned out to be loss making over a high electric power tariff that is twice more expensive for the plant than for other enterprises in the region.

 

 

The Sverdlovsk regional authorities reported that 1,200 people may be laid off.