Russian prosecutors start checks of T Plus’ heating system

MOSCOW, Aug 18 (PRIME) -- The prosecutor’s office of Russia’s Komi Republic has started checks of the Vorkuta city’s heating distribution system, owned by power utility T Plus, earlier known as Territorial Generating Company-7 (TGC-7), the Prosecutor-General’s Office said in a statement Thursday.

On Wednesday, the republic’s Acting Head Sergei Gaplikov told President Vladimir Putin that the region’s power system has not been upgraded over the past several years and its equipment is in a “critical state”. He said that T Plus, which owns local Vorkutinskaya TETs thermal power plant, transferred all the power system’s equipment to a joint stock company and decided to sell it through a public auction instead of fulfilling liabilities to upgrade and prepare it for the winter.

A spokesperson for T Plus told PRIME on Wednesday that the company is ready to ensure uninterrupted operations of its thermal power plants despite any decisions made under optimization of its asset portfolio, but it also expects the regional authorities to help it receive more than 5 billion rubles of overdue debt from consumers and to cut steam coal prices that currently exceed an average market level.

(63.9943 rubles – U.S. $1)

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