Page 2 of 3 Tajikistan struggles for
power By John Helmer
Tojik, the Tajik state power utility,
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan reached an agreement
that by September 2007, the energy grids of
Uzbekistan would be restored and ready to
transport energy.
Although Turkmen
officials weren't present for this deal, they had
already agreed to export 1 billion kilowatt-hours
of electricity per year to Tajikistan for the
winter season. Whether promises to restore all the
necessary relay equipment have been met to
ensure that the new winter
season will be warm remains an open question.
It is one of the key questions to be
discussed when leaders from the three states, plus
Russian President Vladimir Putin and heads of the
other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
governments (minus the Baltic states, and possibly
Georgia), convene in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on
Wednesday.
In the spring, at about the
same time ordinary Tajiks were feeling the lack of
light and heat from their neighbor's unwillingness
to deliver, and their government's inability to do
much about it, Rahmon launched an attack on the
Russians, as if they were to blame. His initial
target was Oleg Deripaska's Russian Aluminum
(Rusal), Rahmon's partner in running Tajikistan's
electricity gobbler and principal source of cash -
Talco.
At the end of 2004, Deripaska had
secretly agreed with Rahmon that if he evicted the
management of Talco and allowed Rusal to operate
the smelter and trade the metal, the two would
share the profits, and Rahmon would allow Rusal to
win a privatization tender for ownership of the
plant itself.
There was a catch. Deripaska
had to promise to invest the US$1 billion required
to complete the Rogun hydroelectric power complex
to feed the Talco smelter, and relieve the
pressure on the rest of the country's energy
supplies. Rogun was first planned in Soviet days,
but construction was halted by the end of Soviet
power, and the disintegration of Tajikistan into
civil war. Because aluminum production is such a
greedy consumer of electricity, the Talco takeover
pact between Rahmon and Deripaska meant they grew
rich, while Tajikistan's lights grew dim.
Deripaska and Rusal are good at promising
to spend large sums of money. Asia Times Online
has reported in detail on the litigations that
have challenged Deripaska to honor his promises
(Tajikistan mired in great power
game, August 15); court testimony in
London, Zurich, Nigeria and elsewhere suggests he
is slow to spend. In Tajikistan, he didn't spend
at all. Or at least two years after the Talco
takeover, it suited Rahmon to say so.
A
new feasibility study for the Rogun hydroelectric
complex, on the Amu Darya River, was undertaken by
German contractor Lahmayer International GmbH.
This proposed a dam to be built to a height of 285
meters. The Tajik government then insisted on
raising the dam wall by another 50 meters. An
argument ensued in which Rusal said the extra work
should be paid for by the Tajik government. Rusal
also warned that the project should be coordinated
with Uzbekistan. Both provisos were
contract-killers.
And so, this April, it
was announced in Dushanbe that Tajikistan had
canceled its arrangement with Rusal to build the
Rogun hydroelectric complex. "There is a
[government] decision to bar Rusal from working in
the country," said Sharifkhon Samiyev, adding that
his government intended to create an international
consortium to complete the power supply project.
Russian companies, except Rusal, would be welcome
to join, he also said.
Unified Energy
Systems (UES), a Russian state power utility,
stepped immediately into the breach, saying it
would consider replacing Rusal to build Rogun. UES
is already building the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric
power station in Tajikistan, but not quite fast
enough for Rahmon's liking.
On April 26,
Tajik news wires reported that Rahmon had met with
Andrei Rappoport of UES. "During a meeting with
the president [Rahmon], I was told that the
country had prepared papers for an international
tender to build the Rogun HPP [hydroelectric power
plant]," Rappoport said. "As Rusal has no
operations in Rogun right now, Tajikistan claims
that the joint venture is no longer possible," he
said. UES experts, he said, had met with Rahmon to
communicate their own plans for the plant.
UES "is neutral, although we have our own
interests there", said Rappoport, indicating they
were waiting "for the political will of the Tajik
leadership to appear". "Russia must be part of the
[Rogun] project to complete Rogun as it is a
strategic facility for Tajikistan and an important
source of electricity exports to Russia,"
Rappoport added.
Rappoport hastened to
assure everyone that Sangtuda-1 would be switched
on in time for this winter.
With
construction at Sangtuda running four months
behind schedule, Rappoport was trying to reassure
Rahmon that the new supply of power would be
available before, not after the coming winter. But
the president's problem is that life is too short
for him to profit from the long term. In the short
term, he and his family live off the aluminum
smelter, and must guard that position by supplying
enough electricity to the rest of the country, one
winter at a time.
For fuel to burn, Tajiks
are thin in terms of petro-resources, but they are
fat with hydro. Their mountain rivers have a
potential hydropower capacity estimated
internationally at 527 billion kilowatt-hours of
electricity a year; this is among the biggest in
the world.
Experts in Moscow, Washington
and Brussels all agree that there is a greater
hydroelectric power capacity in Tajikistan than in
any other country in Central Asia, but currently
its turbines turn out only 16.5 billion kilowatt
hours.
When Rahmon announced in May, after
repudiating Deripaska and authorizing a lawsuit in
London, charging Rusal with corruption, he said
Tajikistan would build up to 80 new hydroelectric
power stations. The only part of the promise he
was exaggerating was the money to make it
possible. According to Rahmon, he is hoping to
attract up to $1 billion in foreign investment in
an international financial and electric power
consortium.
Exactly why foreign investors
would trust Rahmon with the cash any more than
Deripaska had remains a subtle question. This
tricky question won't be on the agenda for
discussion when the CIS heads meet on Wednesday.
Nor when European Union foreign-policy head Javier
Solana brings a troupe of EU officials to Dushanbe
shortly afterwards. The issue of Rahmon's personal
control of his country's cash is, nonetheless, the
quiet sticking
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