RAO UESR Is Ready to Conquer Azerbaijan
A session of the CIS Electric Power Council opened yesterday in Baku. Russia is represented by a distinguished delegation headed by the CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushialo and CEO of RAO UESR Anatoly Chubais. It is worth mentioning here that Anatoly Chubais, who did not use to take a particular interest in Azerbaijan, is now a frequent guest in Baku.
Baku-based experts tend to link Chubais’s activity to RAO UESR’s aggressive policies in Southern Caucasus, mostly Georgia and Armenia. In the tideway of such policies, the intention to build its business in Azerbaijan seems regular. Anatoly Chubais made his intentions public during his previous Baku visit in May this year. It was then that the CEO of RAO UESR declared that “Russia survived three winters without a single energy crisis. We have the right to say that we have completed the task of leading the Russian energy system out of the crisis. This enables us to move on to other regions including Azerbaijan”.
RAO UES of Russia wants to move on not only to Azerbaijan. Chubais was not reticent about the fact that the Russia-Azerbaijan coordinated plans for large scale power line construction may affect the interests of third parties like, for instance, Iran. “We are aware of the fact that our Azerbaijani colleagues plan to build new power lines between Azerbaijan and Iran. It inevitably raises a question of including Iran in the common energy space and synchronizing its energy system. Such a project can only be implemented by joint efforts. And we are interested in it,” Anatoly Chubais says.
In addition to boosting energy exchange, he emphasized a possibility of establishing “parallel operations of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Iranian energy systems”. The issues were addressed in a memorandum of electrical power cooperation between RAO UES of Russia and ÀÎÎÒ Azerenergy signed during the visit. The memorandum also expresses the parties’ interest in long-term mutual electrical power supply in agreed volumes. For this purpose, Russia and Azerbaijan are going to set up a required infrastructure in their territories.
Also, the Russian side is interested in purchasing electrical power companies in Azerbaijan just like it did in Armenia and Georgia. But the problem is the Azerbaijani power distribution grid if fully controlled by Turkish companies, and the other companies are a state monopoly.
It is worth mentioning here that the Russian side can hardly hope for large gains in Azerbaijan. According to experts, RAO UESR’s successful acquisitions in Armenia and Georgia could be explained by the fact that these countries were in great debt to Russia, mainly for fuel and utility deliveries. According to independent analyst Fuad Alizade, as Azerbaijan is quite solvent, it does not want any “special relations” with RAO UESR.
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