The energy reform plan has suffered its first setback. The pilot project for reforms in the regional energy company - Tulenergo OJSC was chosen - has been postponed for at least a couple of months.

The two shareholders of this company - RAO UES of Russia and the MDM Group - cannot reach an agreement on the terms of its division.

The disagreement is simple: MDM wants to acquire the Novomoskovsk GRES, which is part of Tulenergo. RAO and its main shareholder - the state represented by Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko - agree with the idea of selling this station. But only RAO wants to sell it for money at a tender, while MDM wants to become the owner of the GRES by exchanging it for shares in companies newly created on the basis of Tulenergo.

"Sale for cash cuts off from participation in the reform portfolio investors who own shares of JSC-energo, but do not have the funds to participate in the buyout of assets" - this is how a source close to MDM describes the problem. Having spent significant funds on the purchase of shares of RAO "UES of Russia" itself and its subsidiaries, the MDM group is now trying to convert them into real assets. It must be assumed that all other minority shareholders of JSC-energo will adhere to the same strategy. So the entire regional part of the energy reform is at risk of failure. And even if RAO and MDM find a common language, there is no guarantee that their compromise option will be acceptable to other minority shareholders. After all, each private shareholder has his own ideas about what is beneficial to him.

In principle, MDM's arguments seem logical. The group proposes to implement a regional scheme for dividing RAO itself, which involves exchanging shares of the grid company for shares of generating companies and selling shares of generating companies at auctions for RAO shares. In this case, private investors will become the owners of generation, and the state will get the networks. Now, according to RAO's development strategy "5 + 5", the state will have to pay money for purchasing trunk networks from regional companies. In MDM's version, shareholders will get what they want without a special surcharge.

Perhaps if MDM had proposed this option earlier, no one would have had problems with the Novomoskovsk GRES. The group could have become the owner of all Tula generation. And it probably will be in the end. Only now, due to its unwillingness to pay money for the GRES (presumably, not very much), this solemn moment is postponed for an unknown period.

EDITORIAL: MDM is slowing down