In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, the Minister of Finance, Fayziddin Qahhorzoda noted on February 15 that Tajikistan this year has earmarked 2.1 billion somoni (equivalent to more than 222 million USD) for completion of construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
According to him, they are also working on attracting preferential loans from international financial institutions for construction of the Roghun hydropower plant.
“Last year, 4.7 billon somoni, including 3.4 billion somoni of budgetary funds and funds raised from selling Eurobonds, were spent for construction of the Roghun hydropower plant” the minister said.
Qahhorzoda further noted that the second unit of the Roghun HPP is expected to be introduced into operation during the first half of this year.
Meanwhile, President Emomali Rahmon said in his annual address to a joint session of both houses of parliament on December 26 that 24 billion somoni have been spent for construction of the Roghun hydropower plant so far.
The Roghun HPP’s first of six units was officially switched on November 16, 2018 and the plant reportedly generated more than 90 million kWh of electricity before the end of the last year. The last sixth unit of the plant is expected to 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.
