Russia-built plant to generate power in 2008

SANGTUDA, TAJIKISTAN - Another step has been taken towards Tajikistan's energy self-sufficiency today, Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov said addressing participants in a meeting on the occasion of blocking the Vakhsh river at the construction site of the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power station.

"The station's construction will bring us closer to energy self- sufficiency, and we hope that this will be achieved not in 2009 but in 2008," he stated.

The president mentioned that Vakhsh was being blocked today for the second time, since the first time it had been dammed in March 1966 during the construction of the Norak hydroelectric power station. Tajikistan possesses water energy resources amounting to over 500bn kWh of electricity per year, he said.

"The construction of the Sangtuda-1, Sangtuda-2 and also Roghun hydroelectric power stations will make it possible to ensure power generation up to 34bn kWh per year, but the country's real demand for electricity is currently 24bn kWh," Rahmonov said. He added: "The surplus can be exported abroad." The head of state noted the importance of the building of power transmission lines to Afghanistan.

This is the fifth power station on the River Vakhsh and it will annually generate more than 2.7bn kWh of electricity. Currently, about 3,500 people, 3,000 of whom are locals, are involved in the construction of the station. Rahmonov called the "construction a unique school of experience for Tajik specialists in the sphere of building hydro-power stations".

"I asked the head of the Unified Energy System of Russia to speed up the launch of the first unit of the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power station in December 2007. Over 5,000 people will work after putting the plant into operation," Rahmonov said. He also asked not to forget the builders of this station.

For his part, the head of the Unified Energy System of Russia, Anatoliy Chubays, said that "the term and speed of the construction can be described as a record one".

"Today's event confirms that words do not differ from deeds. The deadline was considered absolutely impossible even during the Soviet times," he said. He called the group of builders, who are involved in the construction of the station, unique.

In Chubays' words, by this facility, the Tajik economy, its power engineering and friendship between the Russian and Tajik peoples are reviving. "Sangtuda-1 will make a colossal contribution to the fact that Tajikistan will forget the shortage of electricity," he added.