Azernews.Az

By Trend

Azerbaijan’s government will provide equity injections of $172 million and 204 million euros to Azerenerji JSC, the national energy operator, to assist it in repaying its foreign currency loans over 2016-2025, Fitch Ratings reported on December 7.

Fitch Ratings has affirmed Azerenerji's long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BB+' and short-term IDR at 'B' with negative outlook, according to the rating agency’s report.

Over 70 percent of Azerenerji's total debt as of late 2015 was denominated in foreign currencies, mainly in euros, US dollars and Japanese yen, the report said.

As of late 2015, Azerenerji's debt increased to 2.4 billion manats from 1.5 billion manats, the rating agency said.

The Azerbaijani government also agreed to provide a 360 million manats low interest, long-term loan to Azerenerji so that it can pay its tax due, according to the report.

Given the USD/AZN exchange rate of 1.55-1.7 over 2016-2018, Azerbaijan’s GDP growth is forecast at 2.3-1.8 percent over 2016-2019, the report said.

Power plants of Azerenergy generated 20.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in January-November 2016, as compared to 20.5 billion kilowatt hours in the same period 2015.

The company reported that Azerenergy’s power plants generated about 2.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in November 2016.

In 2015, Azerenergy generated more than 22.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity as compared to about 22.7 billion kilowatt hours in 2014.

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