Fortum to launch second unit at Nyagan power plant by year's end
NYAGAN. Sept 23 (Interfax) - OJSC Fortum will put the second generating unit at the Nyagan power plant into operation by the end of 2013 and the third by the end of 2014, the vice president for financial communications at Finnish parent company Fortum, Paulina Vuosio told reporters.
The first 418 MW unit was launched in April. Once all the units come on line, the plant will have capacity of 1.254 GW, which will amount to about 10% of the electricity needs of the Tyumen power system, which covers Tyumen Region, the Khanty Mansi Autonomous District and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
The opening ceremony for the plant will be held on September 24.
The plant will meet demand from the oil and gas processing industry. The Nyagan power plant is the only plant with condensing turbines in Fortum's portfolio, producing only electricity. However, it is designed to allow heat supplies for the city of Nyagan if such a decision is made with the city authorities.
The company also plans to build two new generating units at the Chelyabins power plant with capacity of 248 MW each, Vuosio said. The first is scheduled to come on line in the second half of 2014 and the second in the fourth quarter of 2014 or first quarter of 2015, according to a company presentation.
Vuosio also said that the Finnish company still plans for its Russian division to achieve EBIT of 500 million euros after 2015. This target was last confirmed in July 2013 and there is no reason to revise this figure, she said, adding that the company is achieving growth in Russia.
She said the Russian division is not yet demonstrating strong results, but there is confidence that the business in Russia will be profitable and the company will have new opportunities for further growth in Russia. New capacity will play a key role in this, Vuosio said.
The market in Russia is more stable for the company than its markets in Europe in terms of operations, Vuosio said.
OJSC Fortum's vice president for production and trading, Yury Yeroshin said the company will complete all of its mandatory investment program in 2015, increasing the capacity of its plants in Russia by 85% to 5.2 GW. Fortum primarily produces both power and heat in Russia.
"Taking into account our new launches, our results in 2014 should be considerably better than in 2013," Yeroshin said.
Fortum's investment program in Russia totals 2.5 billion euros.
OJSC Fortum works in the Chelyabinsk and Tyumen regions and the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District. The company includes the first and second Tyumen CHPP; the Tobolsk CHPP; the first, second and third Chelyabinsk CHPP; the Chelyabinsk GRES power plant and the Argayash CHPP. Their installed capacity is 3.4 GW for power and 12,161 Gcal/hour for heat. Finland's Fortum owns 94.5% of the company.
