Ukraine offers Russia cheap electrical power

As RBC informs, Ukraine's national atomic energy company - Energoatom is supplying electrical power to Russia at dumping prices, Oleg Dubina, president of the Energy Company of Ukraine, has noted. Speaking at a news conference in Kiev yesterday, he expressed the opinion that the government should choose only one agency to supervise electrical power exports. Dubina is convinced that a policy on power exports cannot be developed without understanding the technical conditions of backbone power grids, owned by the Ukrenergo state company, which is not incorporated into the Energy Company of Ukraine. Dubina reckons that Russia re-exports electrical power received from Ukraine to Belarus. The energy company's president thinks that Ukraine can begin direct power supplies to Belarus as soon as a political decision is made.

On August 21, 2004, Ukraine's supervisory commission for the electrical power industry authorized Energoatom to export electrical power to Russia at a price not lower than that for the Ukrainian market. The supplies started on December 1, 2004. Energoatom supplies electrical power at a price of $0.14 per kilowatt-hour. The volume of Ukrainian electricity exports to Russia is expected to reach approximately 6 bn kilowatt-hours in 2005.