A disaster at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant continued to play havoc with the power sector on Wednesday, shifting basic assumptions on investor stock picks, the fuel balance and the long-term price of power. On the Siberian spot market for electricity, prices jumped 24 percent as demand overwhelmed alternative power suppliers, two days after a turbine room at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant flooded, killing 13 and leaving dozens missing.
The government stepped in with proposals to smooth out such spikes, but said the upward trend would continue. On the stock market, plant owner RusHydro was previously seen as one of the safest bets in the sector and a rising Russian blue chip.
It had attracted huge investments from Mark Mobius's Templeton and other global funds. But since Monday's disaster, which knocked out a quarter of the firm's production capacity, its stock has lost around 10 percent of its value in both Moscow and London. It has also been downgraded by Citi and put under review by Alfa Bank and others.