Russian Power Giant Acquires US Electricity Facilities

Tbilisi -- - The American [energy] company AES has sold the 75 per cent of shares it owned in the electricity distribution company AES-Telasi. The president of the AES's affiliated company AES Silk Road, John Huffaker, said at a news conference in Tbilisi today that the shares had been bought by the Russian joint-stock company (?Nordic Owl) which is the fellow subsidiary of Russian energy company Unified Energy System of Russia.

John Huffaker said that the contract had already been signed but refused to go into its details. Nor did he name the price paid for AES-Telasi. John Huffaker said that negotiations on selling Telasi had been under way for a long time and that the Georgian authorities should not have treated the outcome as a surprise. "We informed President Shevardnadze about it a year ago when he was on a visit to the USA and when we began to look for a buyer. The businesses of all the likely buyers were analysed. Georgian businessmen were among those considered. However, we finally gave preference to the Russian company," the president of the American energy company said.

He said that the Russian company proved to be the only realistic buyer and added that the decision to sell Telasi was taken because the enterprise proved to be unprofitable.

AES has sold the Tbilisi electricity distribution company Telasi and the right to manage hydroelectric power stations Khrami-1 and Khrami-2 [both in southern Georgia].

Answering a Kavkasia-Press question as to why the Russian company decided to buy an unprofitable company, John Huffaker said that it was the Russian company's internal affair. "This question concerns the sphere of their interest and I cannot say anything about it," John Huffaker said.

It is worth noting that the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Russian joint stock company Unified Energy System of Russia, Anatoliy Chubays, is arriving in Georgia on 6 August.