Electricity firm EuroSibEnergo, the power unit of Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska's business empire, and China Yangtze Power Co, the country's largest listed hydropower corporation and operator of the Three Gorges Dam, have signed an agreement on the establishment of a joint venture for construction of hydro-electric power plants in Russia.
"The joint venture will be established on a parity basis. In the next three years the company will study a list of six projects aimed at constructing hydro and thermal power plants in Siberia and the Russian Far East with an overall planned installed capacity amounting to 10,000 megawatts and will also prepare the project's feasibility study. After the study is ready, China Yangtze will seek to arrange financing from Chinese lenders," EuroSibEnergo said in a statement.
It is expected that a portion of the energy produced at power plants in Russia will be exported to China's northern and north-eastern territories, which suffer from power shortages.
In October 2010, China Yangtze Power and EuroSibEnergo signed a hydro-power cooperation agreement.
EuroSibEnergo has shifted its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to the beginning of 2011 from December 2010. That will give a green light to China Yangtze Power Company, which may become the only investor in the Russian company, to take part in the IPO, a source close to EuroSibEnergo told RIA Novosti.
"China Yangtze Power Company, with which EuroSibEnergo has already signed an agreement, has become the company's strategic partner and plans to buy $168 million worth of its shares during the IPO. However, CYPC is a state-owned company so it needs time to get all the necessary approvals, that is why EuroSibEnergo has decided to shift its IPO 'to the right'. After this CYPC will actually become EuroSibEnergo's cornerstone investor," the source said.
MOSCOW, November 29 (RIA Novosti)
