DUSHANBE, May 18, Asia-Plus – Tajikistan’s Government and Russian aluminum giant “Russian Aluminum” (RusAl) have not yet reached an agreement on the key issues on the project for completing the construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power station Roghun – type and height of the plant’s dam and ownership shares in a new joint-stock company “Roghun”.
First Deputy Energy Minister, Pulod Muhiddinov, has said in his interview with
Asia
-Plus that a joint working group was set up to estimate uncompleted construction of the Roghun plant.
Germany
’s Lehmeyer International is currently conducting a final feasibility study for completing the construction of the Roghun station, which will be submitted for examination to experts from the World Bank (WB), according to him.
Mr. Muhiddinov noted that the Tajik side had serious arguments that the station’s dam should not be lower than 335 meters in height. “If to bring the dam down to 260-280 meters as RusAl proposes, it will lead to lower the Roghun station capacity by 50 percent,” Mr. Muhiddinov said. Besides, an economic attractiveness of the hydropower facility also will come down in terms of irrigation and regulation of the river’s flow, according to him. “Funds invested in the Roghun station project will repaid in seven or eight years,” deputy energy minister said.
In the meantime, Mr. Leoc Tomicek, manager of the Roghun station project on the part of RusAl, considers that it is still premature to discuss the issue of the height of the future dam. “The feasibility study is still being reviewed and experts from the World Bank should examine it,” said Mr. Tomicek, “Only on completion of this work it will be possible to comment anything.”
