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Electricity Exports to Mongolia, China Up Sharply

Eastern Energy Co. increased electricity exports to Mongolia by 89 percent year on year to 166 million kilowatt-hours in the first half of 2012, the exporter said in a statement.

The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of state electricity holding Inter RAO and is the operator for electricity exports in the Far East.

Eastern Energy said its contracts with Mongolian partners went into effect in 2011 due to the expansion of its region of operations within the Inter RAO group, Interfax reported Thursday.

More than 263 million kilowatt-hours of electricity was exported to Mongolia in 2011, and exports are expected to increase to 320 million kilowatt-hours in 2012. Mongolia uses Russian electricity primarily to cover peaks in demand and to supply power to isolated border areas of the country.

The main customers in Mongolia are the National Electricity Transmission Grid Co. and Western Regional Energy System.

Eastern Energy was set up specifically to supply electricity to China and is the only holder of a contract to export Russian electricity to China.

For its exports to China, the company buys surplus power in the Russian domestic market.

Eastern Energy boosted power deliveries to China by 57 percent year on year to 984 million kilowatt-hours in the first half of 2012, the company said.

Construction of the new 500-kW Amur-Heihe power transmission line, which was finished at the end of last year, made it possible to increase export volumes, the company said.

Eastern Energy plans to export 2.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to China this year, compared with 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours in 2011.

Deliveries are being made under a new long-term contract Eastern Energy signed with the State Grid Corp. of China in February. The contract calls for transportation of 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to China over 25 years.

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