President Emomali Rahmon and Prime Minister Qohir Rasoulzoda today morning visited the site for construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
The Tajik president’s official website says the main purpose of the visit was for them to get acquainted with the progress of construction work in the emergency gate building of the construction tunnel of the fourth level.
Construction and installation works of the facility are reportedly carried out by the contractor, Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Tajikgidroelektromontazh.
Emomali Rahmon and Qohir Rasoulzoda also got acquainted with the pace of work at the Roghun HPP’s passage tunnel AST-3.
Recall, to complete the construction of the Roghun hydropower plant, Tajikistan founded OJSC NBO Roghun in April 2008 after it formally revoked a contract with Russia's RusAl aluminum company in August 2007. 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 somonis worth of 5 million Roghun shares.
In 2016, construction duties on Roghun were assigned to Italian company Salini Impregilo (currently Webuild).
The project is broken down into four components, with the most expensive one involving the building of a 335-meter-high clay core rockfill dam — the tallest in the world — which will entail costs of around US$1.95 billion. Construction of the Roghun hydropower plant is expected to be completed in 2033.
Two of the six turbines have already started producing energy for sale to raise funding to complete it. The first turbine went into service in November 2018 and the second one was introduced into operation in September 2019.
In his address to a joint meeting of parliament, President Emomali Rahmon said on December 23 last year that the construction activities at the site for construction of the Roghun hydropower plant are ongoing dynamically. To this end TJS3.2 billion (equivalent to 315 million U.S. dollars) were channeled in 2022.
To-date, spending on the construction of the Roghun hydropower plants has reportedly exceeded 40 billion somonis since 2008.
If built as planned, the Roghun hydropower plant is expected to end chronic power shortages in Tajikistan and allow it to export electricity to neighboring countries.
