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bne December 2018 Companies & Markets I 11
Russia's Gazprom has secretly borrowed €3.5bn abroad since August
bne IntelliNews
Russian gas giant Gazprom borrowed €3.5bn abroad
in August-October 2018, but has not announced it publicly given the sanctions environment, Interfax and Vedomosti reported citing financial reports of the company.
In August reports claimed that Gazprom suspended its external borrowing plans due to the threat of legal action
as part of its legal dispute with Ukraine's Naftogaz. Earlier Gazprom reportedly had to call off a roadshow for a potential GBP Eurobond issue in the middle of June needed to refinance $15.2bn in external debt by the end of 2018.
Nevertheless, the financial statements indicate that Gazprom
borrowed €400mn in a loan with a maturity of 2023 in August, €700mn due by 2025 in September, and two loans
of €1.2bn and €1.1bn in October from unnamed international banks and syndications.
In the meantime a separate report by Reuters claims that Gazprom has upgraded the capacity of the Power of Siberia pipeline to China from 38bn cubic meters (bcm) to 48bcm. Reuters cited the information Gazprom presented to investors for an upcoming Eurobond issue.
Previously Gazprom officials already said that Sila Sibiri’s target capacity of 38bcm could be expanded once reached in 2025.
MET Group enters burgeoning Hungarian solar energy market
Levente Szilagyi in Budapest
Hungarian energy companies are in a race to install new solar parks at an amazing speed. In the latest develop- ment, energy holding MET Group’s €25mn solar park, MET Dunai Solar Park, started to produce electricity on October 26, after a trial run was completed, the company announced.
Swiss-based MET Group operates in Europe on the natural gas, crude oil, and electricity markets. MET is active on the
gas markets of 28 countries and at 23 international trading points. It has units in 15 countries. It trades about 8% of the gas consumed in continental Europe. Last year, it had revenues of €7.59bn, of which 8% was generated in Hungary.
The 17.6MW solar power plant built in Central Hungary by MET, its first renewable energy project, will produce electricity for 9,000 households. The expected lifespan of the plant is 25 years. The €25mn cost was financed by project financing from banks, without state support. MET plans to build several solar parks with a combined capacity of up to 100MW in Hungary, Hungary's solar energy market has seen a sharp upturn. The largest coal-fuelled power plant Matrai Eromu, broke ground on the two solar parks with a 20MW capacity each this year, the largest ones in Hungary.
To finance the construction it sold a 16MW solar park to state- owned MVM Hungarowind, which has announced a massive wave of constructions, some 110 PV plants with a total capac- ity of 104.2MW.
This will make the subsidiary of the state-owned electricity company MWM the largest operator of solar parks in Hungary. Other companies are also jumping on the bandwagon. MOL is in the midst of constructing three PV plants with a combined capacity of 18.3MW on unused areas at three of its main industrial sites in Hungary.
At the same time, household solar power plants are taking hold at a rapid pace. The number of Hungarian homes powered by their own solar panels rose by a whopping 45% y/y to 29,600 last year, data released by the energy regulator MEKH. The capacity of most household power plants is below 5MW. Energy generated by them reached 241MW, a 46% annual increase.
Market experts forecast that energy production from solar pow- er plants in Hungary could reach 1,000MW by the end of 2019. This would be higher than the output from Matrai Eromu.
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