RusHydro to decide whether to build Taishet aluminum plant soon

MOSCOW, Jun 26 (PRIME) -- Russian hydropower giant RusHydro may decide to participate in completion of UC RUSAL’s construction of a $1.4–1.6 billion Taishet Aluminum Smelter within two or three months, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev, chairman of RusHydro’s board of directors, told reporters Monday.

“I think that probably within two or three months a decision will be made,” he said.

RUSAL offered RusHydro a 50% stake in the Taishet Aluminum Smelter in exchange for some debt of the smelter and a discount for power the hydropower giant will sell to it. Funds to finish construction will be borrowed from banks.

Construction of the facility with a projected annual production capacity of 750,000 tonnes of aluminum started in the Irkutsk Region in 2006, but was frozen in 2009 because of the global economic crisis. RUSAL has already invested over U.S. $760 million of its own funds and is holding talks with investors, including a consortium of Gazprombank, Sberbank, and VEB, on partial financing of further construction of the plant.

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