Articles

Peretok Light: highlights of the Russian and global power sectors for 3 to 9 December

It became known last week that the start-up of second phases of the new TPSs in Sebastopol and Simferopol would be pushed back a third time. Of vital importance for the Crimea, the power stations, whose construction saw an international scandal because of Siemens turbines, cannot be brought on stream in full and on schedule because the local contractors have dropped the ball. Their contracts were lobbied by the republican authorities, who argued that they were needed to create jobs in the region. Originally, the second blocks of the TPSs were scheduled to start up in June, then the deadlines were pushed to autumn. Rostekh’s subsidiary in charge of the TPS construction projects is now asking for the commissioning dates to be moved to March 2019; experts are now talking about the need to bring the power stations on line at least by the start of the next tourist season.

It is now obvious that an extra year will also be needed to launch a large-scale national cogeneration modernization programme. Last December president Vladimir Putin ordered that the legislative and regulatory amendments needed to implement the programme be drafted by 1 May. Last week Kommersant reported on the latest edits to the draft government decree on modernization; sources at Minenergo [EnMin], now without deputy minister Vyacheslav Kravchenko, who left in November and was the chief developer of the programme, expect that it will be signed by premier Dmitry Medvedev before the year is out. The deadline for the annual capacity auction (CA 2022), to be held after the selection of modernization projects, has already been pushed back to 1 May.

Two high-profile top managers are leaving Sberbank at the same time to join energy sector companies. The first to report the hiring of Vadim Logofet, now-former managing director and head of the energy sector accounts directorate of the major accounts department at Sberbank CIB, was Kvadra, which has still to complete the power stations under the TPS EAC programme.

In the early hours of Monday, Oleg Deripaska’s poaching of Maksim Poletayev, former first deputy chairman of Sberbank, was reported by Kommersant. Mr Poletayev’s relationship with his boss, German Gref, soured in the wake of the scandal involving Croatia’s major retailer, which had borrowed from Sberbank among others: the company Agrokor, which had accumulated more than $6.4 bln worth of debts and was placed under government control. In June Mr Poletayev was moved to the position of adviser to German Gref, ostensibly “due to the need for a change in working arrangements”. Now he is eligible to sit on the board of directors at a number of En+ members, as well as the board of GMK Norilsky Nikel, where Mr Deripaska owns 27.8%, of which 25% + one share are pledged as loan collateral to Sberbank.

Last week Rosseti’s head Pavel Livinsky revisited the subject of bringing strategic investors into the company through a secondary offering. A number of market experts believe that in talking about a possible strategic investor being brought in through a public offering, the government-owned group seeks to reduce Rostekh’s risks of buying into it — previously, such plans were announced by Sergey Chemezov, head of the government corporation.

EnMin revisits the subject of hiking water charges for power stations with straight-flow water supply systems. By 2025, the rates are expected to have grown 4.65 times. The switch at about 80 TPSs and two AESs to a closed water cycle system will mean additional expenses, which will be factored into the price of energy, with no effect on the contamination level, and will reduce the future budget revenues. That is why the regulator suggested fixing the water charges for straight-flow power stations.

At the investor day in Sochi, Inter RAO announced its plans to consolidate Nizhnevartovsk GRES. The current blocking stake in the station, which burns associated gas, is held by a Rosneft affiliate. The oilmen’s interest in the SP [JV] lost its meaning following the inking of a 25-year gas supply contract between Rosneft and Nizhnevartovsk GRES in 2016.

As it turns out, the catastrophic shrinking of the market for high-capacity gas turbines is not the only major headache for General Electric in the outgoing year. As Reuters found out, the company is forced to take down for repairs a minimum of 18 cutting-edge turbines worldwide because of problems with the hot section and blades.

The volatility of the global market for high-capacity gas turbines, the demand for which has collapsed as distributed generation took off on a global scale, improves the chances of successful implementation of projects to set up production of turbines of the world’s leading manufacturers in Russia in partnership with domestic energy producers.