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The discussion focused on the company’s operation and readiness for the autumn and winter season.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Livinsky, you have worked in this capacity for a month. I hope you had enough time to get up to speed. Rosseti is a large, if not a huge, company. Its subsidiaries distribute 80 percent of electricity generated in Russia. Overall, I believe the company’s financial standing is satisfactory. What is your net profit, 98 billion rubles?

Rosseti CEO Pavel Livinsky: Yes, Mr President, our target for 2017 is 98 billion rubles.

Vladimir Putin: How much do you plan to spend on maintenance and business development?

Pavel Livinsky: Mr President, considering that our planned revenue is nearly 900 billion rubles, we plan to invest some 251 billion. These are huge figures even on the national scale. We have allocated nearly 60 billion rubles for maintenance. Taken together, these plans are necessary for maintaining the sustainable operation of power grids.

Vladimir Putin: What do you think of these financial possibilities? How do you plan to develop your company’s economy?

We will talk about the company’s specifics, and you will also tell me about preparations for the winter season and other issues.

Pavel Livinsky: Mr President, the top priority for me is to develop a reasonable pricing policy. Rosseti is a socially oriented company, which lives on the money paid by electricity users. Therefore, the rates must be fair and predictable. We are planning all our finances based on an inflation index of minus 0.1 percent, to stimulate innovation-based company development. Therefore, our top priority is to reduce costs, which is an area with potential.

In general, if we compare, the Russian economy’s energy intensity is 50 percent higher than in European countries, for example. This certainly means we have good potential.

As for costs, capital intensity, and availability of personnel, after studying the issue thoroughly, I believe that there are resources for optimisation.

Therefore, the main emphasis should be on innovative development for cutting costs. This includes smart grids and digital substations with maintenance costs half of those for conventional substations.

This should be combined with other efforts that directly affect the economy – reducing losses and fighting non-payments. The fewer arrears we have, the less we borrow. The loan burden, which needs to be serviced, is also a major encumbrance we plan to reduce.

All these measures taken together, I believe, will improve the financial and economic situation.

Vladimir Putin: And now let us move on to the issue of winter.

Pavel Livinsky: Regarding preparations for the winter. Mr President, I think our main task for today is smooth operation during the autumn and winter. In general, the grid system is ready for this; half of our units already have their readiness certificates.

Some regions are already operating in the autumn-winter mode; others still have time to prepare. To date, headquarters have been set up in all the regions where our company has a presence; the facilities and personnel have been appraised and certified, emergency stocks and reserve energy sources prepared. As many as 50,000 people are on operational duty for potential emergency relief, or more than 10,000 teams. Approximately 5,000 backup energy sources with a total capacity of 400 megawatts have been tested and ready for operation. This is quite a lot. The grid system is ready to work through the autumn and winter.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

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