Page 124 - RusRPTMay19

Gazprombank and VetroOGK, the bank’s wind power joint venture with Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, have signed an agreement on allocation of up to 6.6bn rubles to construction of 50 megawatt of wind parks, the bank said in a statement on Monday. In 2017, the bank lent 63.1bn rubles to the company for construction of 610 megawatt of wind power facilities. In 2018, Gazprombank’s unit GPB Vetrogeneratsiya acquired 49.5% of VetroOGK from Rosatom.
KVIP International V L.P. (a Uniper minority) has requested an amendment to the agenda of the AGM scheduled for 22 May, according to a Uniper press release. It wants to discuss the spin-off of the International Power Business segment, or, respectively a spin-off of the European Generation Business segment in Sweden. At the moment, Uniper’s International Power Business comprises exclusively Unipro's 11GW of capacity in Russia, while in 2016-18 Unipro accounted for 26% of Uniper's EBITDA. The European Generation Business consists of 26GW of capacity in Germany, Sweden, the UK, Benelux, France and Hungary, of which Sweden accounts for 4.6GW. The Board has agreed to assess the request.
9.2.11 Metallurgy & mining corporate news
● Gold
Gold production of Russia’s Polyus Gold increased 19% on the year and fell 6% on the quarter to 600,700 ounces in January–March, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Sales increased 24% on the year and fell 11% on the quarter to 570,000 ounces. Production on the Olimpiada deposit rose 17% on the year to 248,300 ounces, on Blagodatnoye 3% to 94,000 ounces, on Verninskoye 14% to 67,000 ounces, on Kuranakh fell 6% to 43,600 ounces, on Natalkinskoye amounted to 85,100 ounces.
Russia's largest gold producer Polyus Gold has prepared and accelerated book-building for an SPO of 3.5% of its shares on Moscow Exchange for about $400mn, Vedomosti daily reported on April 3. Other sources told the daily that 5% for $500mn will be up for sale. Russia’s equity market is slowly coming back to life. Since the beginning of 2019 there have been a number of equity deals carried out on Russian stock market, after a desert of no deals since August 2018. This included sales of equity in Norilsk Nickel and Evraz by oligarch Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, the sale of minority stake in the TCS banking Group by its owner Oleg Tinkov, preparation of a SPO by meat major Cherkizovo, and possible IPO of Russian rail operator RusTransCom. Polyus Gold shares will ride the wave of demand and sell shares from the 82.44% portfolio of Polyus Gold International controlled by Said Kerimov, the son of billionaire and senator Suleiman Kerimov. The deal would increase the freefloat from 16.67% to 20.17%. Reportedly Russian Fund for Direct Investment (RDFI) along with a number of Middle Eastern Funds will participate in the offering. Analysts and investment bankers surveyed by Vedomosti daily believe that prolonged indecision over sanctions and growing gold prices will support Polyus shares. Since October 2018 the shares gained 30%. Polyus Gold has been showing stable financial results in the third and fourth quarters of 2018 and is investing in developing two major gold deposits Sukhoi Log and Natalka.
Russia’s Polyus Gold has one of the longest mine lifespans among gold miners globally (26 years), which may rise further after company completes exploration of the Sukhoi Log deposit. Polyus’ JORC operating mine reserves declined by 3.2mn oz to 64.4mn oz, the company reported on April 9. The decline was higher v gold output (2.44mn oz) mainly due to reduced reserves grade at Olimpiada (2.88 g/t from 2.94 g/t). On the other hand, JORC
124 RUSSIA Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com