To save companies, Deripaska proposed raising electricity prices

Oleg Deripaska, who fell under the American En+ sanctions, asked the government for benefits, which, as found out Kommersant, who studied the proposals, , should allow the company to save at least 40 billion rubles. Basically, they come down to discounts for UC Rusal in the energy market, for which other Siberian consumers will pay. If measures are taken, electricity prices will increase by 13-14%, and housing and communal services tariffs for the population will be increased.

Details

• The most important measure to support Deripaska's business empire, which will allow it to save 13-18 billion rubles, is the release of Rusal from payments under power supply contracts (they return investments in generation due to increased market payments). According to Rusal itself, this will lead to an increase in energy prices in Siberia by 12%.
• Electricity prices in Siberia could rise by another 1-2% after Rusal is released from the energy price surcharge to reduce tariffs in the Far East, which will allow Deripaska's companies to save another 1.9-3 billion rubles.
• En+ also wants to conclude free bilateral agreements with RusHydro and Rosenergoatom at a discount to the market price of 0.5 rubles. per kWh (0.5-0.7 billion and 4.8-8.6 billion rubles of savings per year, respectively), Kommersant writes. The companies, however, said that such negotiations are not ongoing.
• En+ also wants to raise the maximum level of payments for housing and communal services in the Irkutsk region and raise the tariff for heat and hot water by 1%. In addition, En+ proposes to reduce cross-subsidization (in this situation, the redistribution of tariffs for paying for electricity, when industrial consumers partially pay for electricity for the population) in the Irkutsk region and raise grid tariffs for the population - for example, transferring part of Rusal's load to all consumers of the Federal Grid companies. The En+ effect was estimated at 3 billion rubles a year.
• The Ministry of Energy did not respond to a request from Kommersant, the FAS declined to comment, and the Ministry of Economic Development supported only cuts in cross-funding in the Irkutsk region. The specialized state structures of the Irkutsk region are aware of the initiatives and are negotiating, but there are no decisions yet.

Context

• Deripaska's companies are one of the main victims of the US sanctions imposed in April. At the end of April, Deripaska agreed to reduce his stake in En+, which controls the aluminum company, to less than 50%, and a few days ago he stepped down from the board of directors, first En+, and then Rusal . Deripaska's loss of control over Rusal is a key condition for the lifting of US sanctions on the company.
• The Renova group of Viktor Vekselberg also fell under US sanctions, which also turned to the government for large-scale state support and, among other things, asked for state support for loans of up to $ 5.5 billion, benefits for the group's energy companies and a ban on the import of Evian and Perrier, competing with incoming in Renova by the drinking water manufacturer Baikal Holding.

After the first wave of sanctions and counter-sanctions that followed them, ordinary citizens turned out to be one of the main losers. It was they who, out of their own pocket, paid for the disappearance of many European goods from the Russian market and their replacement with more expensive and not always high-quality analogues. The published plan to rescue Oleg Deripaska's business empire indicates that this time everything is going according to the same scenario: the population will again have to pay.

Artem Gubenko