RAO UES CEO Anatoly Chubais.
Photo: ITAR-TASS
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Anatoly Chubais Calls On Foreigners to Help
// They should finish his reform
Yesterday, the session of the directors of the United Energy Systems (UES) concluded the investigation of the reasons for the massive blackout that left four million people without electricity. The final report will be presented at the board of director's meeting on June 24. But yesterday UES 's Chairman Anatoly Chubais told foreign investors in detail the reasons for the power shortage and lessons learned from it. The investors gathered for the ninth annual conference of Renaissance Capital. "There was the electric current problem," Chubais admitted. "But we'll continue to accelerate the reform with the help of foreign investors," the head of the UES concluded optimistically.
Chubais never disregarded foreign investors. After a year of him being the chairman of the UES’s board of directors -1999- the foreign investment companies owned a third of the energy holding company. And the bylaws of the UES in that time were made in a way that excluded the possibility of firing the chairman without the foreign shareholders’ approval. To make a such an executive decision it was necessary to gather not less than 75 percent of the votes. So, even the state with its 52 percent of stocks could not do anything with Chubais. However, the majority of the foreign investors in that time were portfolio investors and they had no special interest to radically reform the UES as Chubais had planned. It is not accidental that today the foreigners were pushed out from their position by Russian strategic investors, who were pressing to redo the power generators. Yesterday, Chubais without much of a regret, said that 30 percent of Mosenergo, the UES affiliate, belongs to such strategic investor as Gasprom. However, he might just speed up events a bit. Kommersant learned from Gasprom that the giant gas holding currently owns only 25.01 percent of Mosenergo. The application for additional 5 percent of stock was submitted by Gasprom to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) and there was no answer so far. Actually, it doesn't really matter how much of the stocks do belong today to Russian investors. Yesterday, Chubais publicly appealed to foreign investors with a proposal to buy as many as possible Russian energy assets. Only this time, the proposal was extended not to portfolio investors but the strategic ones. The head of the UES already made a prediction: three or four electricity generating companies (there are 21 companies altogether are being created now by territorial and ownership principles) would have a foreign owner. Chubais even mentioned the companies with whom he is currently negotiating: Fortum (Finland), E.ON (Germany) and ENI (Italy). He also named the assets that might go to the foreign stockholders. One of them is Lenenergo.
There was also no less important news: the timeline of the UES final split. According to Chubais, it should start no matter what in the middle of 2006 and should be finished in the middle of 2007. The head of UES also said that there would be no public stock sales for these companies. The current stock holders would receive a proportionate to their assets shares in new companies. The state will not have controlling share in the power-generating companies except the hydro-electric station, but it will acquire 75 percent in Federal Network Company and in System Operator.
It looked like Chubais arrived to ninth annual conference of Renaissance Capital just to report to investors about his ongoing reform. Also, he wanted to reassure the investors, including Gasprom and foreigners, that while he has a stable position at the top, nothing would move the reform off the track. In his speech, Chubais touched the tariffs problem. Currently the electric energy tariffs are set below the inflation level. For instance, in next year with planned inflation rate of 8 percent, the tariffs should exceed 7.5 percent. However, the head of UES underlined that the spot market is being formed in parallel with the state regulations. In other words, the switch to free market pricing is getting closer.
Investors did not learn too many new things about the reasons for the recent blackout. A lot of information was published already in the media. “That was an electric current problem,” Chubais explained. “The main reason for the crash was not the fire on the Chaginsky transformer station, but old equipment that created the malfunction within the 110kVt and 220kVt current transformers.” As a protection measure from future blackouts, it was decided to transfer all 110kVt currents under the supervision of FSK. Also, the multi-level scheme of control would be reduced to a three-level scheme with reinforced control. The modernization of equipment will be accelerated and the head electrical engineers will receive more independent decision-making powers. Chubais said that he is not planning a serious staff shake up, but many UES managers will be reprimanded or punished for the blackout.
Chubais strongly believes in the success of his reform because the blackout in Moscow, which left four million people without power for several hours, was still small compared with the power outage in the United States two years ago, when 100 million people on the East Coast were sitting without electricity. To better learn the possible causes, the experts from the UES are researching the Moscow blackout of 1949, when not only electric currents failed, like in the recent case, but the generators as well. Whole Moscow was without the light for almost 24 hours.
Konstantin Simonov
All the Article in Russian as of June 21, 2005
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