MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) - HydroOGK, Russia's largest hydropower operator, said Monday it had signed an agreement with Morgan Stanley to raise a 7-year loan of 1.5 billion rubles (about $58 million) to finance its investment program.
The loan will finance the upgrade of the existing hydropower infrastructure owned by the company and the completion of new hydropower plant projects, HydroOGK said.
HydroOGK, which was established in December 2004 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy System (UES) [RTS: EESR], earmarked more than 5 billion rubles (about $194 million) for its investment projects in 2006 and expects to spend more than 10 billion rubles (about $388 million) on these efforts in 2007, the company said.
HydroOGK currently operates hydropower plants across Russia with an installed capacity of 23 GW.