PRESS: Ukrainian businessman can buy Crimean solar power station

MOSCOW, Aug 2 (PRIME) -- Ukrainian businessman Sergei Kurchenko, who is on the U.S. sanctions list, can buy more than 300 megawatt (MW) solar power plants in Crimea, business daily Kommersant reported on Friday, citing sources.

The power plants, owned by foreign firms, were built with loans from Sberbank, VTB and VEB.RF or their affiliates, as well as Ukraine’s Oschadbank, whose the debt passed to the Russian fund for depositors’ rights protection. After accession of Crimea, the plants were unable to repay the loans because of low Russian power tariffs, and their debt to the banks totals 63 billion rubles. The banks can sell the solar power plants at an auction as part of bankruptcy.

Kurchenko has already submitted a financial model of development of the plants to the Russian government.

A company connected to Kurchenko, has bought an oil license for the Crimean shelf and is interested in the purchase of a bulk plant in Feodosiya. He earlier sold coal to the self-proclaimed republics in the east of Ukraine and liquefied petroleum gases from Russia to Ukraine.

(63.8340 rubles – U.S. $1)

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