Market Council will apply sanctions on RusAl, RusHydro, if Boguchany hydropower plant not launched on time
CHERYOMUSHKI. Aug 2 (Interfax) - Market Council will apply sanctions on equal Boguchany Energy & Metallurgical Association (BEMO) partners RusAl and RusHydro if the Boguchany hydropower plant is not launched on schedule, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said.
"Market Council will be announcing sanctions in light of the replacement of capacity that is not launched at the Boguchany station with other types of generation," Sechin told the press on Monday.
"I think finding mechanisms via Market Council will have an economic effect on all who violate [deadlines]," Sechin said. The partners are currently unable to coordinate their efforts on the project, he said. "One of the shareholders is waiting for prices to change on the aluminum market, the other has corporate responsibilities associated with it," he said.
The registration in Cyprus of the joint RusAl-RusHydro venture for the building of Boguchany hydropower plant also raises issues, he said. "Unfortunately, at the defining stage this project was registered in Cyprus. Something also needs to be done about that," he said. It needs to be determined how a strategic facility is now regulated by Cypriot law, he said.
The partners are not dealing with operational management at the present time. Notably, there were 25 fires at Boguchany hydropower plant in 2008 and twelve more in 2009, Sechin said. At a meeting of a governmental commission in Khakasia on Monday, it was decided that the Emergency Situations Ministry would take charge of the situation, he said. And "all mutual relations in all the outstanding issues [including project management] are to be settled," he said.
The BEMO project involves the building of a hydropower plant (capacity - 3,000 mWt/year) and aluminum plant (588,000 tonnes/year). The plan originally was for the power plant to reach full capacity in 2012, after the first line of three hydro-generators was commissioned this coming December. Now it looks like the first generating unit will go into operation next year and full capacity will be reached in 2013.