RusHydro’s board approves sale of 50% in Verkhne-Narynsky cascade

MOSCOW, Dec 10 (PRIME) -- The board of directors of Russian hydropower company RusHydro has approved the sale of a 50% stake in a joint venture building Verkhne-Narynsky hydropower plant cascade to Kyrgyzstan’s Electric Plants, the Russian company said in a statement on Monday.

Joint venture Verkhne-Narynskiye GES was registered in 2012 under an agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Russia. In 2016, the Kyrgyz government cancelled an agreement on joint construction of the facility and the Kambaratinskaya GRES-1 power plant, after which RusHydro said it will apply to an international arbitration court.

In July 2017, the then-Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbay Jeenbekov signed an agreement with Czech company Liglass Trading CZ to restart construction of the Verkhne-Narynsky cascade, which it started to build with Russia. Under the deal, Liglass Trading CZ was to repay a U.S. $37 million debt to RusHydro, but it failed to do so on time. Kyrgyzstan terminated the agreement in October 2017.

In October of 2018, RusHydro’s board of directors put the cascade on the list of non-core assets for sale, and in November RusHydro filed a case over Kyrgyzstan’s decision to scrap construction of the Verkhne-Narynsky hydropower plant cascade unilaterally to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

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