As of January 1, 2020, Barqi Tojik power holding (Tajikistan’s national integrated power company) owes 1.3 billion somoni (equivalent to more than 135 million U.S. dollars) to Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Sangtudinskaya GES-1, which operates the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
Barqi Tojik’s debt to OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 reportedly rose 245.7 million somoni in a year to December 31, 2019.
Sangtudinskaya GES-1 press center says GAntua-1 HPP last year supplied 645.9 million somoni worth of electricity to Barqi Tojik (VAT included).
Meanwhile, the rate of the collection of funds for electricity from Barqi Tojik reportedly amounted to only 62 percent.
Recall, 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.
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.