MOSCOW — Russia's electric power giant, Unified Energy Systems, wants to use money from the country's Stabilization Fund to build a hydropower station at Sangtudin, Tajikistan, the company's chief executive said today. "The construction of the Sangtudin hydropower station is an important project for Russia to strengthen its influence in the region and we will ask the Russian government to allocate money to finance it," Anatoly Chubais said.

Russia's Stabilization Fund was established on January 1, 2005 to accrue revenues from oil sales at a price of over $20 per barrel. As of early June 2005, the Stabilization Fund totaled 954.5 billion rubles (about $33 billion). According to a forecast of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Stabilization Fund will accrue about $40 billion by the end of 2005 and about $80 billion by the end of 2008.

Chubais added that the Russian government had supported the company's mechanism of investment guarantees.

According to him, the electricity utility plans to hold the first tender in the second half of the year for the construction of new electric power stations using this mechanism.

Chubais said his company was studying regions with electricity shortages for the prospective construction of new electric power stations.

"Possibly, this will be an electric power station at Shchyokino, Tula region (central Russia), and we also have a proposal on an electric power station in the Urals area," Chubais said.

UES board member Sergei Dubinin, the country's former chief banker before the 1998 financial crisis, said that the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade was expected to submit the document on the investment guarantee mechanism to the Justice Ministry for further work.

According to him, the document will stipulate measures to prevent the shortage of generating capacities.