An Energy Collapse Is Looming In Russia's Priamurye Region
- 4.02.2026, 15:44
Due to the shortage of coal and the wear and tear of CHP plants.
At the Blagoveshchenskaya thermal power plant (BHPP), the largest in the Amur region of the Russian Federation, there is a risk of serious accidents that could leave about 170 thousand residents of the capital of the region without electricity and heat supply. This was reported in the Federation Council on Tuesday by Pavel Matyukhin, deputy head of the Amur Region government, writes The Moscow Times.
"The situation with fuel in the region is close to the limit. One of the two coal mines has been depleted, and the second one is impossible to increase production due to the most difficult geological conditions and the complete wear and tear of production. Today, up to 50% of fuel is supplied to CHPPs and 340 out of 550 boiler houses of the region's housing and utilities sector out of non-designed coal. Well, it is clear that the equipment is subjected to premature wear and tear, destruction," Matyukhin is quoted by Interfax.
According to him, the region urgently needs a gas pipeline, which will allow the CHPPs to be converted to gas. However, Gazprom has no money for such a project, a member of the company's board Vladimir Markov told the same Sovfed meeting. It is necessary to extend 200 km of pipeline, it will require 50 billion rubles, he gave calculations.
In December 2025, the director of BHPP Andrey Sazanov reported that the annual demand of the station is 2.15 million tons of brown coal, but due to the decline in production of the main supplier - the company "Russian Coal" - have to use another type of this mineral.
"We are forced to import about 30% of the required volume of coal from Krasnoyarsk region, which does not meet the technical characteristics - it has abrasiveness and high heat dissipation, which leads to catastrophically fast rates of equipment wear," explained Sazanov. He also specified that in 2025, against the background of equipment wear and tear, 1.5 billion rubles - three times more than in 2024 - would be spent on repair work at the station, which began operating in 1976.
BHPP is part of JSC Far Eastern Generating Company (RusHydro Group). The plant's heat capacity is more than 1 thousand Gcal/h, and its electricity capacity is 404 MW. It supplies up to 90% of Blagoveshchensk with electricity.