Alexandra Panina, a member of the company’s board, said forecast exports for next year would exceed record levels that have stood for many years.    

   “We believe that 2022 will be quite a favourable year and, let me say this again, that by the end of the year we will produce levels higher than average levels over many years,” Panina said during a teleconference with investors.

   According to company documents, Inter RAO believes that Russian power exports in 2021 will total 21.4 billion KWh –1.8 times the level in 2020 and a rise of 11 % compared to the 2019 figure. 

   “For now, we are forecasting that this winter, in January-February and possibly in March, energy prices will remain at quite a high level,” Panina said. “The following year, energy prices will stabilise, but we can expect that prices within the European Union will remain, on average throughout the year, higher than they were in 2019 and 2020.”

   Russia, she said, could boost electricity supplies to China this year by a third. Faced with a serious energy crisis and a shortage of power, China requested greater amounts of electricity from Russia and, starting in October, the company had practically doubled its supplies.

   Kazakhstan had also requested power supplies in the face of shortages. The country has blamed power shortages on cryptocurrency miners, many of whom moved to Kazakhstan after China imposed a ban on cryptocurrencies.

   “Kazakhstan has in fact requested power supplies. Inter RAO is considering the matter seriously in order to launch energy exports to Kazakhstan,” Panina said. “To be honest, we have even started offering specific volumes on the Kazakh exchange. We are talking here about commercial supplies.”

   Nearly 80 % of power supplies from Inter RAO – the sole exporter and importer of electricity in Russia — is sent to China, the Baltic states and Finland.