Enel Russia wants to sue Siemens Gamesa for almost 23 billion rubles

Enel Russia recovers from Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (Russian subsidiary) Siemens Gamesa) 22.9 billion rubles, according to the lawsuit, which was reviewed by Vedomosti. It was filed on August 16 with the Arbitration Court of the Murmansk Region by a subsidiary of the energy company LLC Enel Rus Wind Kola.

The essence of the claims boils down to the fact that Siemens Gamesa unlawfully refused to supply equipment for the construction of the Kolskaya VES wind farm with a capacity of 201 MW. Enel Russia’s subsidiary demands to invalidate Siemens Gamesa’s unilateral refusal to execute the equipment supply contract and prohibit the defendant from initiating proceedings in the International Arbitration Court at the International Chamber of Commerce in Vienna (Austria).

In addition, as an interim measure on the claim, a petition was filed to block actions with property. Enel Rus Wind Kola asks the court to ban Siemens Gamesa from taking actions “by order, encumbrance, removal of disputed property” on the territory of the construction site of the Kola WPP.

The consideration of the claim, including decisions on interim measures on it, was suspended until September 19 for technical reasons (the plaintiff did not provide the court with confirmation of the payment of the state duty in full, the details were incorrectly indicated, two different types of claims were combined into one claim), follows from the materials of the case.

The representative of Enel Russia refused to provide detailed explanations, limiting himself to the fact that the filed claim “concerns the restoration of the violated rights of Enel Rus Wind Cola”. Siemens Gamesa did not respond to a request at the time of publication.

Siemens Gamesa acted as a partner of Enel Russia, supplying equipment for wind turbines. With her participation, the Azov wind farm with a capacity of 90 MW was built in the Rostov region, but after the start of a special operation in Ukraine, the company suspended work in Russia. As a result, Enel Russia was forced to abandon the project to create a wind farm in the Stavropol Territory. At the end of June, the governor of the Murmansk region, Andrey Chibis, said that the Kola wind farm, which is the largest beyond the Arctic Circle, was “in a high degree of readiness.” He clarified that 48 out of 57 wind turbines have already been installed, and the main equipment has been delivered to the construction site.

One of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbine equipment Siemens Gamesa is included in Siemens energy. On August 9, the company in its financial statements for the third quarter (April-June) noted that Gamesa had become the main division generating losses. Siemens Energy’s revenue for the III quarter decreased by 4.7% to 7.3 billion euros, the company’s net loss increased by 73.5% and amounted to 533 million euros compared to the same period last year. The overall drop in revenue could be even more, it follows from the financial statements, if a significant decline in Siemens Gamesa’s financial indicators was not offset by growth in another division – Siemens Gas and Power.

In May, Siemens announced its withdrawal from Russia, and three months later, Siemens Energy, which left the Siemens group in 2020 as a result of a corporate reorganization (spin-off), did the same. The sale of assets in the Russian Federation in mid-June was also announced by the Italian Enel, which owns a 56.43% stake in Enel Russia. The buyers of her stake in the energy company for 135 million euros were “Lukoiland the Gazprombank-Freesia Foundation. After the completion of the transaction, 5.6 GW of traditional and 300 MW of renewable energy capacities will be transferred to new shareholders, Enel specified. Even earlier, the CEO of Enel Russia Stefan Zvegintsov, as Vedomosti wrote, was replaced in his post by Zhanna Sedova, who at that time was the Director of Legal Affairs of the company.

However, the deal to sell Enel’s stake has not yet been closed and, as Kommersant reported, may be frozen due to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin in early August on the application of special measures in the financial and fuel and energy sectors, which prohibited foreigners from leaving until December 31. from Russian assets in the energy sector (exceptions can be made only with special permission).