Now With Neighbors’ Support, Is Kyrgyzstan’s Mega-Dam Dream Viable?

ALMATY — A decade in the past, the concept of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan agreeing to construct a large dam challenge along with their upstream neighbor Kyrgyzstan would have appeared unimaginable.

Now, a street map settlement signed by the three nations final week to construct the dam with a hydroelectric energy station on Kyrgyzstan’s Naryn River reveals that power and water shortages can convey Central Asian nations collectively, slightly than ripping them aside.

However doubts stay about funding for a $3 billion-plus challenge that Russia was as soon as anticipated to supervise and which the trio plans to finish in 4 years, with development slated to start in 2024.

“This challenge is political,” stated Azamat Akeneev, an financial skilled primarily based in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, about Kambar-Ata-1, the hydropower plant within the Jalal-Abad area whose supposed capability is near 1,900 megawatts. “So the involvement of neighboring nations provides some hope that it is going to be realized.”

The thought to construct Kambarata-1, the large dam that might energy the hydroelectric plant at its base, dates again to Soviet instances, and it was Moscow that Bishkek turned to in a bid to revive the challenge in 2008.

Issues did not precisely go in accordance with plan.

A minimum of a part of the $300 million smooth mortgage allotted towards the challenge by Russia went lacking, with Russian media pointing the finger at Maksim Bakiev, the son of Kyrgyzstan’s then-president, Kurmanbek Bakiev.

After the Bakiev household was ousted in a revolution in 2010, Kyrgyzstan and Russia struck a recent deal for the dam, in addition to a number of different separate smaller hydropower amenities, additionally on the Naryn River.

However by 2016, Kyrgyzstan had torn up its contracts with two Russian state-backed corporations: Inter RAO, which was overseeing Kambar-Ata-1, and RusHydro, which was set to construct the smaller hydropower vegetation.

Almazbek Atambaev, then the pinnacle of state, cited “goal causes” for Moscow’s failure to make actual progress on the tasks, amid collapsing international power costs and sanctions imposed on Russia by Western nations over its annexation of Crimea the 12 months earlier than.

“That is going to be the case for a very long time…. Kyrgyzstan ought to exit these agreements and discover new traders,” Atambaev stated on the time.

Some consultants speculated that Russia was by no means a lot occupied with finishing the challenge.

Moscow’s most important purpose, they stated, was to accumulate leverage over Uzbekistan, with whom the Kremlin’s relations had cooled, and which was virulently opposed to mega-dams additional upstream on trans-boundary rivers, citing the detrimental results they’d have on supplying the nation’s huge agricultural sector.

The loss of life of Uzbekistan’s hard-nosed, long-ruling first president, Islam Karimov, later that 12 months noticed main enhancements in Tashkent’s relationships with its neighbors.

These days, as Ravshan Nazarov, a senior tutorial on the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, factors out, deepening cooperation with different Central Asian nations in water and power is embedded in Tashkent’s nationwide improvement technique.

And though Tashkent nonetheless has considerations about water quantity within the glacier-fed Naryn River, it now sees the dam challenge as a supply of stability, slightly than as a menace, Nazarov informed RFE/RL. Furthermore, Uzbekistan’s energy wants are more and more urgent.

Rasul Umbetaliev, a Kyrgyz power skilled, stated in an interview with RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service this week that, if something, it’s Kyrgyzstan that’s constrained by plans for Kambar-Ata-1. That’s as a result of deliberate creation of an organization collectively owned by the three nations to run the hydroelectric plant when full.

“If Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan could have 66 % [of this company], then these two nations will likely be managing our water assets. That is in opposition to nationwide pursuits,” Umbetaliev complained.

One factor that this 12 months has bolstered is that the additional capability Kambar-Ata-1 may convey to Central Asia is sorely wanted.

The three nations becoming a member of for the challenge are linked by way of the Soviet-legacy united power grid and suffered simultaneous blackouts throughout a grid drawback at the start of 2022.

A chilly snap this winter has wrought havoc within the area, with houses in Uzbekistan plunged into darkness and chilly and power-starved factories pressured to put off employees.

But the issue now going through Kambar-Ata-1 is identical because the one which has deterred funding into the sector in all these nations: Energy manufacturing in Central Asia, backed because the communist period, is solely not commercially worthwhile, and regimes are leery of tariff hikes for shoppers that may foment political instability. That could possibly be an issue, because the three nations constructing the plant are more likely to be its speedy goal market, with energy exports to South Asian nations a extra formidable purpose sooner or later.

“From an financial viewpoint, nothing has modified,” financial skilled Akeneev stated. “It’s nonetheless a loss-maker.”

Kyrgyzstan has signaled its ambitions by allocating 1.5 billion soms ($17.5 million) for the development of bridges and tunnels within the infrastructure-strapped area internet hosting Kambar-Ata-1.

Work on the website started in the summertime.

In November, Kyrgyz Deputy Vitality Minister Sabyrbek Sultanbekov claimed that France’s state-owned EDF power firm had proven curiosity within the challenge, however provided few particulars.

At an financial discussion board in Bishkek the earlier month, Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Adilbek Kasymaliev requested the World Financial institution if it might be occupied with getting concerned within the Kambar-Ata-1 challenge, amongst others.

“I do know that you’ve got used to simply listening, however now we should always acknowledge the significance of those tasks. Subsequently, Kyrgyzstan formally invitations the World Financial institution to take part in these tasks,” Kasymaliev stated.

The World Financial institution didn’t instantly reply to RFE/RL’s request for remark. However a report on Kyrgyzstan by the financial institution in 2020 flagged “power underpricing of electrical energy” and “backtracking” on tariff coverage as elements discouraging personal funding within the power sector.

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan’s position within the challenge, past securing a share of the facility generated by Kambar-Ata-1 and safeguarding entry to trans-boundary rivers, stays to be seen.

Almaty-based economist Kassymkhan Kapparov, the founding father of the ekonomist.kz web site, stated that efforts to draw funding will rely on the need of the three nations to promote it as a inexperienced power challenge uniting the area.

“That is perhaps the primary instance of those three nations taking the initiative on a significant integration challenge with out an out of doors companion,” Kapparov stated.

“Maybe Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will make seed investments — $20 million to $30 million — to indicate the seriousness of their intentions. After that, they should appeal to extra vital investments from worldwide organizations,” he added.