The largest Russian state-owned company is finally entering Crimea, not giving a damn about Western sanctions
In the near future, all Crimean power grids may come under the control of the federal Rosseti, which will become the key shareholder of the new JSC Krymenergo, receiving up to 9 billion rubles from the budget for the asset's development in 2018–2020, Kommersant reports .
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As sources told the newspaper and confirmed by the Ministry of Energy, the new enterprise will take control of all the power grids under construction and modernization on the peninsula, and registration documents are currently being prepared. The main shareholder of Krymenergo will be the state holding Rosseti with a share of up to 75%. Although Rosseti itself has not yet commented on the situation.
The publication’s interlocutor explained that within the framework of the Federal Target Program, they will first of all reconstruct the “southern transit” - a 110 kV power transmission line along the southern coast of Crimea, and also modernize emergency automation.
“Everything is aimed at increasing the network capacity, substation capacity and reliability,” said the source, who recalled that according to the federal target program, the construction of 2020 thousand km of networks is planned on the peninsula by 1,5.
Rosseti has not yet advertised its plans to enter Crimea; it was only known about the holding’s participation in Sevastopolenergo LLC (presumably 50+1%). By October, Rosseti planned to create a joint venture with the city and transfer to its balance sheet the assets that now belong to the Sevastopolenergo Energy Company, which is now registered in Ukraine (in the media the company is associated with Federation Council member Alexander Babakov and CSKA FC President Evgeniy Giner). This scheme will make it possible to control the city’s networks and invest in infrastructure; Rosseti planned to invest up to 2 billion rubles in the enterprise,” the publication notes.
Previously, the ex-head of Rosseti Oleg Budargin admitted that when entering the peninsula market there are “certain risks” of sanctions, but emphasized that “after people were left without electricity, we simply have to be there.”
Experts also confirm the risk of sanctions and restrictions on the supply of equipment, but expect that Rosseti will enter the project “fairly openly”, since it is necessary to control the expenditure of funds.
“OOO VO Technopromexport Rostec has already encountered scandals surrounding equipment, which was unable to directly purchase Siemens gas turbines for thermal power plants under construction in Crimea and hid the supply behind a resale scheme. However, the situation with networks is simpler: this equipment is largely produced by Russian factories, in addition, Rosseti itself is now reducing purchases of imported equipment,” the newspaper points out.
Russia's largest state-owned company is finally entering Crimea, defying Western sanctions.