East-Siberian hydro plant to work out trillionth kW/hr of electricity.

IRKUTSK, January 13 (Itar-Tass) - A major Russian hydropower plant
located in the city of Bratsk on the East-Siberian river of Angara is due
to produce a trillionth kilowatt/hour of electricity Wednesday and thus to
set a record among all the hydropower plants in the northern hemisphere.
Only one hydropower plant in the world - the Itaipu hydroelectric
station located on the Parana River on the border between Brazil and
Paraguay - has produced this amount of electricity so far.
The Itaipu plant has the installed production capacity of 14,000
megawatt. Its dam is about 200 meters tall and more than 7 kilometers long.
The Bratsk hydropower plant has smaller parameters - the installed
production capacity of 4,500 megawatt and a dam that is 120 meters tall
and a thousand meters long.
It boasts a steadily intensive output of electricity, as the Angara
flows out of Lake Baikal, the world's biggest reservoir of fresh water.
On the average, the Bratsk plant generates 22.5 billion kW/hr of
electricity a year, which allows it to play the role of a regulator of
consumption loads on the energy system all around Siberia.
The plant provides electric power for hundreds of cities and towns,
dozens of non-ferrous metallurgy factories, paper and pulp mills, chemical
plants, the Trans-Siberian railway line and the Baikal-Amur Railway /BAM/.
"In the wake of last August's major industrial accident at the
Sayano-Shushenskaya plant on the Yenisei River, the Bratsk plant took on
itself a part the latter's load," a spokesman for the Irkutskenergo power
utility said.
"April 28, 2009, the plant for the first time ever performed the
function of a regulator of electric current frequency in the entire energy
system of Russia," he said.
A decision on this was taken then because the Volga cascade of power
plants had reported provisional inability to perform the role.


.Russian president, premier to meet with visiting Turkish premier.

MOSCOW, January 13 (Itar-Tass) - Issues of strategic partnership,
bilateral trade and economic cooperation in a range of areas with emphasis
on the energy sector will dominate the agenda of discussions that
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are expected
to have Wednesday with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep
Erdogan.
The Kremlin press service said Medvedev and Erdogan plan focusing "on
a range of issues of bilateral cooperation" and discussing the schedules
of further interstate contacts.
"Russian and Turkish political leaders hope to take the two countries'
strategic partnership to a quality new level in the short term," the press
service said.
The sides will also consider a broad spectrum of international issues
from the setting up of a new architecture of European security to the
situation in the Caucasus and the pace of peaceful settlement of a range
of conflicts.
The government's press service said Prime Ministers Putin and Erdogan
are expected to take up a wide range of bilateral cooperation issues and,
first and foremost, the large-scale joint projects in the energy sector
reflecting the strategic nature of Russian-Turkish relationship.
Turkey remains a leading foreign trade partner for Russia. Trade
between the two countries' companies grew 49% last year and reached a
record figure of $ 33.8 billion /or $ 38 billion as suggested by Turkish
statistics/.
The energy sector sets the boldest examples of a success of this
cooperation.
At this moment, the sides are working on the South Stream and Blue
Stream Two natural gas pipelines, the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline and
atomic energy sector projects.
Projects in a number of high-tech areas also have a fair potential.
Experts put the total volume of Turkish investments in Russia at $ 6
billion.
Enterprises that have Turkish investors are operating in many parts of
Russia and cover electronics /TV sets and household appliances/,
construction materials, household chemical products manufacturing, textile
and glass manufacturing, beer brewing and production of other foodstuffs,
as well as the sphere of consumer services - retail trade, tourism and
banking /a total of six banks/.
Russian investments in Turkey have reached $ 4 billion to date. One of
the most noticeable instances of Russian investing was the purchase of a
13.2% stake in Turkcell, Turkey's leading mobile phone operator by Alfa
Group at the end of 2005.
In July 2008, the Russian oil industry major LUKOIL bought up the
entire network of 693 gasoline stations of the Turkish company Akpet.
Investment in them totaled $ 555 million.
-0-kle