Tajik authorities ask the World Bank to assist with attracting foreign investments for completion of construction the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
On April 2, the first deputy head of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), Jamoliddin Nouraliyev, met here with delegation of the World Bank led by Goar Guluman (phonetically spelled).
According to the NBT press center, Nouraliyev called on the World Bank to make its contribution to attraction of foreign investments for implementation of the Roghun Hydropower Project.
He, in particular, emphasized that the Roghun hydropower plant is of regional significance and it will improve Central Asian nations’ access to cheap and ecologically pure electric power.
According to data from the Ministry of Finance, 2.1 billion somoni (equivalent to more than 222 million U.S. dollars) are earmarked this year for construction of the Roghun HPP.
Last year, 4.7 billion somoni from all financial sources were spent for construction of the Roghun hydropower plant.
Recall, the Roghun HPP’s first of six units was officially switched on November 16, 2018. The second unit of the Roghun hydropower plant is expected to be introduced into operation in April next year. The last sixth unit of the plant will be introduced into operation in 2028, when plant’s dam will reach the planned height.
Tajikistan stemmed the flow of the Vakhsh River for construction of the Roghun HPP in late October 2016.
Roghun HPP is an embankment dam in the preliminary stages of construction on the Vakhsh River in southern Tajikistan. It is one of the planned hydroelectric power plants of Vakhsh Cascade.
The Roghun HPP was first proposed in 1959 and a technical scheme was developed by 1965. Construction began in 1976 but the project was frozen after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An agreement on finishing the construction was signed between Tajikistan and Russia in 1994; however, as the agreement was not implemented, it was denounced by Tajikistan parliament.
In October 2004, Tajikistan signed an agreement with Russia's RusAl aluminum company, according to which RusAl agreed to complete the Roghun facility and rebuild the Tursunzoda aluminum smelter. In August 2007, Tajikistan formally revoked a contract with RusAl, accusing it of failing to fulfill the contract.
In April 2008, Tajikistan founded OJSC NOB Roghun with an authorized capital of 116 million somoni for completing the construction of the Roghun HPP. Current authorized capital of OJSC NBO Roghun reportedly amounts to some 14 billion somoni.
To raise funds to complete construction of the Roghun HPP the government started to sell shares in Roghun to people on January 6, 2010. Tajikistan has reportedly issued 6 billion somoni worth of Roghun shares. The sale of Roghun shares has reportedly earned the government 980 million somoni.
In 2016, construction duties on Roghun were assigned to Italian company Salini Impregilo. It is estimated that the project will cost $3.9 billion to complete.
The project is broken down into four components, with the most expensive one involving the building of a 335-meter-high rockfill dam — the tallest in the world — which will entail costs of around $1.95 billion.
If built as planned, the dam will be the tallest in the world at 335 meters and have a capacity of 3600 MW.
