UAE's Mubadala, Taqa to invest $1 bln in Uzbekistan's Talimarjan power plant

TASHKENT. Sept 12 (Interfax) - The Uzbek authorities have signed an agreement on Friday that calls for major investments by the United Arab Emirates' Mubadala Investment Company and energy company Taqa in the Talimarjan Thermal Power Plant, Uzbekistan's Investment and Foreign Trade Ministry reported.

The agreement provides for the formation of a joint venture to manage the Talimarjan TPP. The Arab companies' investments will be used to pay for an 80% stake in the venture, which is being formed with charter capital of $300 million, and repay about $700 million in loans raised by JSC Talimarjan TPP earlier, the ministry said.

The signing ceremony was attended by UAE Energy and Infrastructure Minister Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei and Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister and Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Jamshid Khodjaev, and the heads of Mubadala, Taqa, and Uzbekistan's Energy Ministry and companies National Electric Grids and Thermal Power Plants.

The signed documents open the door to further investment by the UAE companies in expanding the generating capacity of the Talimarjan and other thermal power plants by outfitting them with modern combined cycle gas turbines, the ministry said. The next stage of cooperation, under the documents, will be for the Arab companies to invest in additional generating capacity at the Talimarjan TPP.

The first unit of the Talimarjan TPP, with capacity of 800 MW, was put into operation in 2004. The plant launched its first combined cycle gas turbine, with capacity of 450 MW, in October 2016, a second with the same capacity in February 2017 and another two in August. The plant's current capacity is 1,700 MW, but there are plans to expand it to 2,600 MW and increase electricity production to 20.4 billion kWh per year.

The combined installed capacity of power plants in Uzbekistan totalled about 15,800 MW at the beginning of 2022, data from the Energy Ministry showed. Thermal power plants, mostly running on natural gas, account for about 85% of generation and hydropower plants account for the rest.