Murmansk to Increase Electricity Exports to Norway

Kolenergo is intending to raise electricity supplies to Norway in 2003 to 650 million kilowatt-hours. The increase comes as part of an agreement between Kolenergo and the Norwegian companies Troms Kraft and Varanger Kraft.

As a Rosbalt correspondent was informed by the company press office yesterday, a Kolenergo delegation returned from Norway last week having held negotiations on the technical aspects of the project. According to Kolenergo Public Relations Manager Mikhail Vatin, the new project will be one of the largest ever joint Russian-Norwegian projects. There is a surplus of energy resources on the Kola peninsular. In the early nineties about 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electric energy were being produced but now this figure is only about 16.5 billion. This difference of 3.5-4 billion kilowatt-hours of energy could be transferred to other regions of the country or exported.

The first stage of the project will provide an export capacity of at least 120 million kilowatt-hours. Further development could raise this figure to 300-400 kilowatt-hours. In the long term potential export capacity will reach one billion kilowatt-hours.