Zee Beam News

Oct. 06, 2008 - Kommersant - Vice Premier Igor Sechin has set to mastering a new business field, the power engineering. Sechin will head the BOD of Inter RAO UES, which is expected to turn into one of the country’s giants by 2015. The key business of Inter RAO is overseas operations and French Electricite de France will soon become its co-holder and partner. As to Sechin, he chairs the BOD at Russia’s oil company, Rosneft, and the control over Rosneft and Inter RAO will enable this powerful vice premier to pursue the independent energy policy. A political liaison of both companies is a soft variant of Gazprom, the analysts say. Inter RAO released the list of 20 candidates to the BOD. Igor Sechin is the obvious frontrunner and exactly he is likely to chair that body. The EGM will elect the BOD October 23 and the results are expected to be made public on the same day. Inter RAO UES is Russia’s monopoly for energy export and import; it owns facilities of roughly 8,000MW capacity both in Russia and overseas. Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom holds over 57 percent in Inter RAO, minor holders (former minors of RAO UES of Russia) have 38.5 percent and the treasury stocks account for around 4 percent. The company’s worth stood at $1.06 billion, according to Friday quotes on RTS. The plans are that Inter RAO will step up facilities to 30,000MW by 2015 and boost capitalization to $14 billion. So far, Sechin has never been the BOD member at an energy company. But he heads the BOD of Rosneft. A new authority will widen Sechin’s control over the fuel and energy sector of the country to the extent that nears the power of Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom that is aggressively acquiring energy assets and with which Rosneft has been long competing for influence. According to the analysts, Sechin’s personal control over Inter RAO signals the government has revised its attitude towards the company. Nowadays, Inter RAO is more a lever of influence than a certain business undertaking. It could be viewed as the continuation of gas expansion but through softer methods. Gazprom arouses fear but no one is scared of Inter RAO. Besides, the expansion of the kind matches Sechin’s positon, whereby “not all energy assets should go to Gazprom but Russia must have everything.” The investors have appreciated Inter RAO potential. The company grew 1.4 percent on RTS Friday contrary to the index decline of 7.09 percent.