Glencore can help UC Rusal in Tajikistan

The Trader Glencore, which owns 8.75% of UC Rusal, is ready to invest into the modernization of the Tajik Aluminium Company (Talco). Meanwhile, the agreement of UC Rusal’s shareholders implies restrictions on the purchase of core assets by the parties, and the company itself has been trying to recover $274 million of debt from Talco. Sources of the Kommersant believe that Glencore can make the payments a condition of the investment.

The Tajik President, Emomali Rahmon has discussed cooperation in the production, processing and sale of aluminium with head of the Glencore AG’s aluminum unit Andrew Kaplan. Glencore “intends to contribute to the technological modernization of the state unitary enterprise Tajik Aluminium Company (Talco) and to restore the production capacity of the plant," the press centre of the President specified. Talco is the only aluminium producer in Tajikistan. Its capacity is over 500 thousand tons per year, but in 2013 only 216.4 thousand tons were produced, the plant made the loss in the amount of $40 million. In 2003, UC Rusal, in which Glencore owns a 8.75% stake, began working with Talco, planned to take a controlling stake in the plant, but in 2004 the partnership ended, and the companies began to be at low since 2005. In October 2013, UC Rusal reported that according to the decision of the International Commercial Arbitration in Switzerland Talco owed the Russian company $274.3 million. The court rejected a counterclaim against a structure of UC Rusal for $400 million.