Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Barqi Tojik (Tajikistan’s power generation network)’s debt to OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1, which operates the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant, has risen 543 million somonis over the first nine months of this year, reaching 3.530 billion somonis (equivalent to more than US$331 million) on September 30, 2024, the Sangtudinskaya GES-1’s website says.
In January-September this year, Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant has reportedly generated 2.137 billion kWh of electricity, which is 41 million kWh more than in the same period last year.
Over the same nine-month period, the hydropower plant’s installed capacity utilization factor has reportedly amounted to 48.8 percent.
Since the beginning of the year, an average rate of payment for electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant has been only 32 percent that does not allow the company to fully fulfill its obligations to the national budget of Tajikistan and its shareholders, says a statement released by OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1
It is to be noted that Barqi Tojik is the only buyer of electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant.
Meanwhile, OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 seeks an opportunity to sell electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 HPP itself.
The company has repeatedly raised the issue of increasing the supply of electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 HPP and independently exporting it at different levels.
Representative of OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 say that according to the agreements concluded, the company has the right “to sell electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 HPP in accordance with direct contracts and export it by itself.”
These rights are reportedly enshrined in a government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and Russia on a procedure and conditions for joint participation in construction of the Sangtuda-1 HPP and in a government-to-government agreement on operation of this hydropower plant.
The Government of Tajikistan wants to review the agreement signed with the Government of Russia on payment of electricity generated by the Sanfgtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant (HPP) as it wants to pay for electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 HPP in Russian rubles.
This is one of the points of the Plan of Actions to Prevent the Impact of Possible Risks on the National Economy, which was adopted by the Tajik Government on March 18, 2022.
The construction of the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant located some 110 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe began in the late 1980s. By the early 1990s, only 20% of the construction work had been completed, and further construction was suspended due to a civil war that broke out in Tajikistan in the early 1990s. The talks between Russia and Tajikistan on completing the construction of the Sangtuda-1 HPP began in 2003 and in 2004 the parties signed an inter-governmental agreement.
Tajik and Russian presidents officially unveiled the fourth and last unit of the Sangtuda-1 HPP on July 31, 2009.
Russian-Tajik OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 was established to complete the construction of the Santuda-1 power plant. Russia’s Inter RAO YeES and the Ministry of Energy and Industries of Tajikistan signed an agreement on the establishment of the company in Dushanbe on February 16, 2005.
Russia owns 75% percent of the shares minus one share and Tajikistan assumes the 25% ownership interest plus one share in Sangtudinskaya GES-1.
The Sangtuda-1 HPP was officially commissioned on July 31, 2009. The plant now reportedly provides around 15% of Tajikistan’s electricity output.
