The power station is Russia’s largest hydropower plant and its owner RusHydro said that it will take almost two years to replace equipment. Power supply has been affected in the Kemerovo, Altai, and Khakassia regions.

Artyom Volynets, RUSAL’s director of strategy and corporate development, said that up to 11 per cent of RUSAL’s total output (4.4 million tons of aluminium a year) may be affected by the reduced
electricity supply and result in losses worth $1.1 billion. Though the company claimed to have found alternative sources of power supply for four of its smelters located near the hydropower plant, the Sayanogorsky and Khakassky smelters may have to stop production soon, especially in autumn and winter, when there is high demand for energy.

“The problem of securing long term power supplies to the two smelters will not be resolved in the near future and there will be a serious threat of a reduction in production volumes,” Volynets said.

The Sayanogorsk smelter produced 532,000 tons of aluminium last year, which was in excess of its design capacity of 520,000 tons, a company spokesman said. The Khakassia plant, at the same site, produced at full capacity of 297,000 tons last year, he said. Thus combined production at the two plants last year was 829,000 tons.

Declining demand from the car and construction sectors, key consumers of the metal, has resulted in high stocks of aluminium piling up in warehouses.

United Company RUSAL accounts for almost 12.5 per cent of the entire world production of primary aluminium and 16 per cent of the world’s alumina production. It operates in 17 countries on five continents and employs 90,000 people across the globe.

The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service has given Urals Mining and Metals Company (UMMC) and CJSC Russian Copper Company the green signal to buy Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant, which is part of the Rolling Mill (ChTPZ).

With the acquisition, UMMC will receive 47 per cent in Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant while Russian Copper Company will acquire 37 per cent. Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant is Russia’s leading zinc producer with a 64 percent dominance in the domestic market.