Oleg Deripaska, president of Russia’s Basic Element (Basel) holding company, says that Basel plans to reconstruct the Ragun hydroelectric power plant in Tajikistan, and build new aluminium smelters, at a total cost of US$1.8B.

According to the Interfax news agency, the company recently signed an agreement to reconstruct the Ragun plant. Russia’s Unified Energy Systems (UES) has already conducted a technical evaluation of the project, and work on the project is expected to start in November this year.