Afghanistan and the Asian Development Bank in the presence of a government delegation of Uzbekistan on October 20 signed the US$ 110 million Surkhan-Puli-Khumri power line finance agreement, the Uzbek Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade (MIFT) reported.
The construction will be carried out by Uzbek contractors. The contract for the construction of a power transmission line between the companies "National Electric Grids of Uzbekistan" and Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat will be signed "in the near future," the MIFT noted.
In September last year, the energy enterprises of the two countries signed a electricity supply contract from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan for a period of 10 years on a “take or pay” basis. This principle, which is one of the ADB's conditions for project finance, is that if Afghanistan's need for electricity supplies from Surkhandarya runs out, the country undertakes to pay off the contract anyway.
The 500 kV power transmission line project was signed in December 2017. Construction work on the territory of Uzbekistan began in March 2018. The 260 km transmission line will increase the supply of electricity from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan by 70% to 6 billion kWh per year. At the initial stage, the volume of supplies will amount to 4.2 billion kWh.
