Almaty, 5 July 2011. The President of Kazakhstan launched the project to enhance and reconstruct Ekibastuzskaya GRES-2 on Monday during a videoconference between Astana and Pavlodar Oblast, within the framework of the Industrial Innovation Forum held in Astana.
“Before the breakdown of the Soviet Union, we had constructed two units, out of the designed eight units. Now, according to an agreement between me and the President of Russia, we have begun to construct the third unit with the capacity of 500 MW,” said Nursultan Nazarbayev. “Our construction and industrial sites cannot work without electric power and Ekibastuz is the main source of energy production in Kazakhstan. This is a people’s project, indeed.”
The total value of the project to construct the third power generating unit at Ekibastuzskaya GRES-2 approximates US $800 million. An agreement to finance this major investment project in Kazakhstan was made in summer 2010. The document was signed by the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) and Vnesheconombank, on the one part, and Ekibastuzskaya GRES-2, and Samruk Energo and INTER RAO UES, as its shareholders, on the other part.
In accordance with the agreement, the EDB and Vnesheconombank will provide a multicurrency 15-year loan for the project for a total of US $770 million.
“This project is significant and extremely important not only to its initiators and lenders, but also to the development of the relations between Russia and Kazakhstan as a whole,” said Gennady Zhuzhlev, Deputy Chairman of the EDB Executive Board. “The construction of the third power generating unit at Ekibastuzskaya GRES-2 is one of the largest integration projects in the post-Soviet area to be performed in the non-raw material sector of the economy.”
