Poverty Rate Hits 17.4%

Six million Russians were added to the government’s official poverty count in the first quarter amid the country’s worst economic contraction on record, the State Statistics Service said Friday.

The poverty rate rose to 17.4 percent in the period, or a total of 24.5 million people, from 13.1 percent at the start of the year, the service said. (Bloomberg)

RusHydro on RusAl Debt

RusHydro said Sunday that United Company RusAl had reduced its debt to the state hydro power giant to 300 million rubles ($9.5 million), or almost by half, Interfax reported.

“The last payment was made Aug. 28,” said Yevgeny Desyatov, RusHydro’s sales director, the news agency reported. He said the debt was previously 580 million rubles. (MT)

Telenor Makes 2nd Appeal

Telenor said Friday that it was making a second appeal against a $121 million penalty imposed on it for not voluntarily paying a $1.7 billion fine.

The motion has been denied once and a hearing on the current appeal is scheduled for Sept. 14 in Moscow, spokesman Dag Melgaard said by e-mail. The Norway-based firm was ordered to pay $1.7 billion in damages to VimpelCom in February. (Bloomberg)

New Head at Damaged Dam

RusHydro on Sunday appointed Valery Kyari as new head of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant in Siberia that flooded earlier this month, killing at least 72 people.

Kyari will replace Nikolai Nevolko, RusHydro spokeswoman Yelena Vishnyakova said. Kyari had headed the plant’s hydropower repair service, and his expertise will be useful after the accident, she said.  (Bloomberg)

RusHydro Restoration Work

RusHydro plans to restore the destroyed turbine hall at its Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant by Nov. 11, chief executive Vasily Zubakin said Saturday, RIA-Novosti reported.

The company will sign deals with contractors Tuesday to speed up work on a new water spillway. RusHydro expects to start three of the plant’s turbines within six months, Zubakin said.

RusHydro plans to reach an agreement with United Company RusAl to open four power units at the Boguchansk hydro plant in 2011, instead of three as planned, to compensate for the loss of capacity, he said. (Bloomberg)

For the Record

• General Motors urged the German government to pressure Magna into making an offer for GM’s Opel unit without Russian backing, Spiegel reported Saturday, without saying where it got the information. (Bloomberg)
• Russia is in talks to sell weapons worth $2 billion to Saudi Arabia, making the Saudis one of the largest customers for Russian military exports, Interfax reported Saturday. (Bloomberg)
• Japan proposed to offer Gazprom $2 billion to help fund construction of a pipeline in exchange for a purchase of 1 million tons of steel pipe from a Japanese manufacturer, the Nikkei newspaper reported Saturday. (Bloomberg)
• Vitaly Yusufov, head of the Moscow office of Nord Stream, quit “to pursue other opportunities,” the Gazprom unit said Friday. (Bloomberg)