Dear Shareholders!
The year of 2015 is significant for us in the content of the priority investment projects execution, focused on development of the power infrastructure of the Far East: new capacities of Blagoveschenskaya TPP were comissioned (the 1st stage of the 2nd phase). It is one of the four thermal power plants in the Far East constructed upon the Order of the President N 1564 dated of November 22, 2012. Construction in the three other sites is on-going, commissioning of Yakutskaya TPP-2 is planned for the current year, of Sakhalinskaya TPP-2 and TPP in Sovetskaya Gavan’ – for the next year.
Active contstruction works contimued at VostochnayaTPP in Vladivostok and in Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP in Magadan region. Implementation of the most important construction stage of Nizhne-Bureyskaya HPP was started in Amur region – the constructors started filling of the earth-filled dam and preparing of the basic equipment for installation. In April 2016, the Bureya river was dammed, and two hydropower units are planned to be commissioned in December 2016.
In early autumn, in the other part of the country – in the North Caucasus – a new powerful plant started in Dagestan mountains – Gotsatlinskaya HPP. Intense construction and installation works took place for another two construction projects in this region – Zaragizhskaya HPP in Kabardino-Balkaria and Zelenchukskaya HPP-PSHPP in Karachay-Cherkessia during the whole year of 2015. In Siberia the Boguchanskya HPP project is nearing completion. In the reported year, the Boguchansky reservoir was filled up to the design level allowing the plant to operate in the design basis regime.
RusHydro not only constructs, but also continues upgrading power facilities.
This is the investment into the safety and reliability of the operation, into the efficiency growth and the increase in the installed capacity of our plants. Since 2012, RusHydro has implemented the Integrated Modernization Programme that covers dozens of power facilities. More than half of the main equipment will be replaced within the framework of this programme.In 2015 Kamskaya HPP was the 1st to finalize full modernization of the hydropower units, thus its capacity increased by 14%. Additionally, 3 modernized hydroelectric unitsare commissioned in Volzhskaya HPP, 5 hydropower installations in Cheboksarskaya HPP, 3 hydropower units in Saratovskaya HPP and 1 hydropower installation in Novosibirskaya HPP. Replacment of turbines and generator mechanical parts took place in three hydropower units of Zhigulevskaya HPP. In total 14 hydropower units with the installed capacity of 1171 megawatt were modernized.
At the end of the last year, the company made efficiency improvement its top priority. We managed to minimise the costs of modernization, inter alia, due to improving the efficiency of procurement procedures while preserving the high quality of the works and initial target parameters of reliability and safety of HPPs. In 2015, we continued optimization of the administrative personnel: its headcount was reduced by 14%. In 2016, we will continue the work on improving efficiency. For example, RusHydro is going to minimize the operating expenses across the Group nearly by 9 bln. RUB, which makes up 9% of the 2015 level. The cost optimization is intended to ensure the financial stability of the Group and better investment appeal.
Additionally to the difficult economical situation in the last year we faced negative environmental trends as well – the low streamflow period continued in the first half of the year had negative impact on production figures. However, the increase of the rainfall in autumn balanced the situation, and taking into account the increase in production of the new Boguchanskaya HPP and a number of the thermal power plants of RAO Energy Systems of the East, led to the power production increase by 4% as compared to the previous year.
However, even despite unfavorable hydrological conditions and deterioration of the business environment, RusHydro Group has preserved overall financial stability. We managed to increase the revenue by 6% as compared to 2014, keep growth of operating expenses below inflation rate, and increase net profit by 12.5%. The Group’s leverageremains within the acceptable limits.
During the years of its’ existance RusHydro has faced a lot of challenging and large-scale tasks and has always solved them sucessfully. This is the merit of the company staff, the high-level specialists, the reliable and talanted people, having restored the damaged Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP and having finalized construction of Boguchanskaya HPP. No matter what the economical situation is, we have to keep our human potential, observe the local hydropower traditions and handle them over to the new generations. This is a strategic resource that ensures reliability of the unified power system of the country.
We have successfully lived through a complicated year. With all my heart I would like to thank my colleagues, the staff of RusHydro, its branches and subsidiaries for their fruitful work in 2015, and to wish them success in accomplishing our tasks in 2016.
Shulginov N.G.
Chairman of Management Board – Director General of PJSC RusHydro
