Page 118 - RusRPTFeb21

The Centre of Financial Accounting has published data about the wholesale non-payments for electricity in 2020​, as well as the preliminary data about retail non-payments in December 2020. Non-payment was a non-issue.
· According to the release, as of the end of 2020 the wholesale market faced RUB73.0bn of receivables (RUB98.1bn as of the end of 2019) with the settlement level at 99.88% for 2020 (99.92% in 2019). Some 85.3% of receivables relate to the North-Caucasus Federal Region.
· In terms of the retail market, in 2020 the receivables increased RUB68bn, with RUB330.8bn of receivables as of the end of November and the preliminary data suggesting RUB297.6bn of receivables as of the end of December 2020. The January-November settlement for 2020 stood at 97.655%, compared with 97.65% in the respective period in 2019, while the preliminary data implies 110% settlement in December 2020 vs. 109% in December 2019. The settlement rates in January-November decreased for non-industrial producers (which account for 53% of receivables; 97.2% vs. 97.4% in 2019), for agricultural producers (1%; 98.0% vs. 98.2%) and for the population (21%; 96.2% vs. 97.8%), industrial producers and government-related consumers improved their settlement rates.
Overall, the reported numbers show once again that non-payments turned out to be not as dramatic as initially expected by the ministries, even with the ban on fines for non-payments due to the COVID-19 outbreak. That is supportive for the financial stability of Russian utilities companies, although they still faced a 14% EPS reduction compared with our expectations at the beginning of 2020
Russian power producer Fortum has suggested the government replace inefficient thermal power generation with solar and wind power plants​,
118 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ February 2021 www.intellinews.com