Posted on 05/28/2005 7:14:53 PM PDT by Flavius
Yesterday Moscow and its suburbs were counting the losses from the major power failure on Wednesday. The main victims of the blackout were the poultry plants: due to the failure of electric supply there was a mass death of the birds. Also the sanitary-epidemical services in the Russian capital were brought to high alert because of the dumping of industrial pollutants in the water of the Moscow River. The authorities prohibited swimming in the river and water out of faucets could be contaminated by cholera and hepatitis A bacteria. The Death of the Chickens
The big losses from the power failure were brought upon the poultry factories. For instance, the Petelinskaya poultry plant lost 400,000 birds -- almost half of the livestock. The plant is designed to keep 1.1 million chickens, but at the moment of the crisis there were approximately from 780,000 to 900,000 birds. Kommersant found out the birds perished mostly because of suffocation and overheating due to the halt of all the industrial fans and humidity regulators powered by electricity. The experts estimate $1 million of direct losses due to the perished chickens.
Sergey Lisovsky, chairman of the Board of Directors of Mosselprom, said that three suburban poultry plants were saved because they had reserve generators. They lost only birds that were already gathered for slaughter. "The slaughter facility was shut down, and because nobody expected that the power will be absent for so long, the workers decided not to bring birds back to the chicken houses," he explained. The total damage was estimated at $45,000. According to Lisovsky, $35,000 from this amount was spent for diesel to maintain the generators for the three plants.
According to Kommersant information, serious economical damage was done to plants of the Elinar-broiler Company. The Ministry of Agriculture of Moscow suburbs announced that by yesterday evening the suburban factories lost about 900,000 birds. However, Albert Davleev, the head of the American Council of Poultry and Eggs Export, thought that these numbers are not final. "The birds will still being dying for a minimum of another week. I think that total loss will exceed 1 million birds already by tomorrow. It is about 13,000 tons of ready products – the average yearly volume of good poultry plant," he explained. Davleev estimates that direct losses from the dead chickens will be a minimum of $2.5 million. And that is not taking in consideration the expenses for transportation, utilization and personnel salaries. Practically all suburban poultry factories were working just for Moscow and its suburbs, so the Russian capital might feel in the nearest time some serious shortage of the product. "The Moscow market will have to supplement fresh chicken meat with the frozen one, which would be delivered from distant regions," said representatives of Consumer Market Department of the city.
The "electric shock" hit other food producers as well, especially ice cream, meat processing, milk and other drinks. "We estimate the loss to be at $20,000 due to a halt of the work for six hours," Viktor Lutovinov, president of the Altervest, which produces ice cream, told Kommersant. "Now, we are considering a purchase of a gas turbine for autonomous electric supply to ensure us from such events in the future." "We practically don't have a direct loss. We'll wait for feedback from the retail points. So far it's hard to calculate the economical damage. Due to the blackout most troubles fell in our little stores, where everything just melted," said Nikolay Likhachev, General Director of Inko (largest distributor of frozen food. According to him, if the combined losses of the company will reach tens of thousands dollars, Inko will file the charges. So far all producers have troubles to estimate the overall damage, because retail points are still preparing the loss reports.
Checking the Counter
Nikolay Filatov, head of food quality supervision organization Pospotrebnadzor, told Kommersant, that yesterday the service representatives checked more than 1,500 Moscow enterprises producing food. "We started our checks to prevent spoiled products to reach the market. While there was no electricity the food producers could not possibly follow the safety production rules," said Filatov. "We, for instance, are making sure that kefir (milk based drink) producers destroy their day before yesterday production, wash and disinfect the bottling line and only after that they should restart the process." According to him, there are no problems with large food producers. It's the little ones couldn’t afford the loss and might have tried to put their products on the counters.
The retail sales and especially open streets market become main targets for Sanitary-Epidemic Services (SES). Filatov said that yesterday all the retail points of the Russian capital underwent a thorough check up because of their defrosted refrigerators the day before. Yesterday the brigades from Rospotrebnadzor were checking franchised supermarkets, stores, grocery markets and so on. The inspectors were confiscating perishable products such as ready- to- eat foods and milk products. According to Filatov, by 4 p.m. yesterday there were more than 3.5 tons of perishable products confiscated. These goods were flushed into the sewer, destroyed in special places or taken to the farms as the animal feed.
The open markets and small retailers were big victims of the accident. All large chain stores -- "Perekrestok", "Sed'moy Kontinent", "Ramstor", "Paterson", "Kopeika" -- had about 20 to 30 percent of their stores in the blackout zone. The most radical announcement was made yesterday by "Paterson":"We lost a significant amount of profit as well as perished goods. After it will be clear who is responsible for the accident we will sue them." The store estimated its losses at $170,000.
The Finance Men at Loss
Russian financial markets were working yesterday in a normal regime. The press-service of Moscow stock-exchange published that "there were possibly some losses but it is unfeasible to count them." "We chose the path of less resistance. The main losses were not incurred by the stock-exchange but rather by the participants of the trading. They will sort them out themselves," the press-service told Kommersant.
Stanislav Kleshev, head of the analyst department of Financial Bridge said: "There was a lost profit due to the brokers' commissions who were not able to attend the trading sessions because the power went off. All together it is possibly cost $10,000." Alexei Parfenov, deputy chairman of MDM-Bank noted: "In average, our department earns about $5 million per quarter. So if we'll take in consideration this number, then we lost about $40,000. But we should say that not everyday is profitable one. Thus, maybe this day saved us from bad deals."
The representatives of the insurance companies Leader and Energogarant, which cover Mosenergo, told Kommersant that so far their clients did not bring up any claims. "We did not receive any claims yet because of energy blackout yesterday," commented Ekaterina Kumanina, head of the press-service of Energogarant. "The Leader did not receive any claims either," PR Director of the insurance company Tatiana Ivkina told Kommersant. According to her, the company is conducting a technical investigation, which should establish the size of the damage.
The insurance companies noted yesterday that the rest of their clients who suffered from the power loss did not call them either. However, the Insurance House of VSK told Kommersant about several clients from Moscow suburbs and Tula region, working in the agricultural field, who incurred the losses. "The company formed the mobile working groups which went directly to clients and together with them started to appraise the damage." Standard Reserve, Soglasie and Ingosstrakh were also questioned by Kommersant. The companies' representatives said that did not have claims either.
The system of the money wire transfers could not calculate the direct harm. However, all players of the market say there was a high possibility of losses, when the clients could not send money. Only wire-transfer system Migom could approximate the financial setback. Anna Gorodnicheva, head of the Migom's business project development, announced that "in the day of the accident our profits were 1.5 times less than normal."
The Reserve Equipment to th Rescue
Moscow Oil Refinery Plant (MORP), the first victim of the energy supply collapse, is still without power and in the re-circulation regime. Vice-Mayor of Moscow Valery Shantsev insists that normal work in MORP will start in five days after stabilization of the power supply for the plant.
In the mean time, the owners of Moscow gas stations, including large oil companies, lost profits the day of the accident. Practically all gas stations are connected to the united energy system of Moscow and do not have their own alternative electric supply. For that reason many stations in south, southeast and southwest municipalities were closed for almost half of the day. According to Moscow Fuel Association there are 243 gas stations in these municipalities. One day without business can cost these stations about 20 million rubles.
Yesterday the chemical plant Azot in Novomoskovsk (Tula region, part of the Eurokhim) restarted the equipment that was in reserve during the power blackout and could not be possibly damaged by the surge. By the middle of yesterday, the chlorine and acetelin producing facilities, which are in the beginning of the technological chain, were partially restarted. Today, the plant management plans to launch the amonia producing facility. All other industrial equipment will be launched after a thorough check and it might take up to one month. The loss calculations on the plant are not finished yet, but it might be around $6 - $7 million .
Railroad Troubles
Svetlana Tsareva, press-secretary of Moscow Metro (MM), told Kommersant: "Preliminary estimate of losses showed that MM did not collect about 1.5 million rubles on May 25." Let's remind, that about 20,000 people got stuck in the tunnels in electro-powered metro trains and had to find their way out.
On 55 pulling sub-power stations of Russian Rail Roads (RRR) the voltage was lower than a norm and only passenger trains were able to pass with an interval of 20 minutes. This information Kommersant learned from Khasan Zyabirov, first vice-president of RRR.
The full power supply was re-established yesterday by 6 p.m. Then, the company was able to send on its way 125 freight trains, which were sitting still since 11.20 a.m. on May 25.
According to the latest calculations, Moscow railroad did not complete the planned loading of 50,000 tons, 145 suburb trains were canceled, 32 passenger trains arrived late and 27 trains left behind the schedule.
RRR can only approximate the losses from the electric accident. "First of all, all passengers and cargo companies which were late to arrive to their destination can rightfully file a legal suit against us. Passenger related losses alone can come up to 13.5 million rubles," Zyabirov explains "The urgent re-deployment of locomotives cost the company a minimum of 5 million rubles. There are several more company's branches that incurred the loss. So far, overall, it looks like more than 50 million rubles." RRR is considering filing a legal complaint against the energy providers. "The energy companies, such as UES, Mosenergo, Tulaenergo and Smolenskenergo should be responsible," Zyabirov complained. "We will finalize our complaint to these companies after we will receive all the complaints from the passengers and freighters."
Water Danger
Yesterday some houses in South, Southeast and Southwest municipalities of Moscow still had troubles supplying hot water in the upper floors. The water gets to the upper floors with the help of the special pumps, which run on electricity. “We are supplying enough water, but because there are problems with the power supply it doesn’t get up high enough,” the representative of Mosvodkanal told Kommersant. “As of today we are missing 600 kilowatt for normal supply of the houses.” The residents of the “powerless” houses are receiving water in 31 special water distribution places. The water in these places is being constantly replenished by 19 tanker-trucks.
According to information from Mosvodkanal, Lyublinskaya and Kurianovskaya wastewater treatment plants stopped working due to the power failure and Moscow River received 15,000 cubic meters of waste. However, the deputy director of Rosprirodnadzor Oleg Mitvol’ announced that this number is “preliminary.” According to him, the specialist of this organization by the evening of May 26 “already checked four Moscow wastewater treatment plants (the others have not been checked yet) and they recorded discharge of more than 10,000 cubic meters of wastewater. And that’s documented because all discharges are being recorded.” Mitvol’ thinks that the overall amount of discharges can reached tens of thousands cubic meters. Rosprirodnadzor is planning to finish its investigation by June 3 when the activity check of several officials from Mosenergo, Mosvodokanal and Mosvodostok will be final. After that, the organization will submit all the documents to the prosecutor office. Possible financial cost of the catastrophe, (the cost of treating the water) Mitvol’ appraised at several million dollars. Alexei Kiselev, coordinator of Greenpeace Russia, told Kommersant the same amount. Also he said that it’s doubtful that somebody is going to clean the bottom of the waterbeds and simple cleaning of the water will not lead to anything.
Because of wastewater got into the rivers, the main state sanitary doctor of Moscow suburbs Olga Gavrilenko urged the population of Moscow and its suburbs not to swim in the Moscow River, Yauza and Oka (near towns Tula, Serpukhov and Stupin). The senior scientific researcher of Institute of Epidemiology Vitaly Kuznetsov explained to Kommersant that “bathing is dangerous because of acute intestine infection and virus of hepatitis A.” However, he thinks that the probability to get these diseases is fairly small: “To get sick you need to swim exactly in the place of the waste discharge and drink a lot of water, too.” The real danger, according to his prognosis, is that “dirty water from the Moscow River can get into the stagnant water, such as lakes, and then they can get mass contamination if there will be hot air temperature.”
However, the main sanitary doctor of Moscow Nikolai Filatov thinks that we shouldn’t dramatize the situation. “Currently there is a prohibition to swim in the Moscow River only below Kurianovskaya wastewater treatment plant,” he told Kommersant.
To clean the Moscow River, (diluting the dirty waters) Mosvodkanal is making sanitary water supply – bringing more water into the river from Istrinsky Reservoir.
The Communication Industry Reaps the Profit
Representatives of the Moscow State Telephone Station does not complain about any losses due to the energy crisis, saying that these losses were really small. “In this situation, the main expenses are fuel and parts for diesel generators and maybe also bonuses for the emergency teams,” says one of the managers of Moscow company that builds telecommunication networks. “The price in question—tens of thousands of dollars—and it is absolutely an negligible amount for such a company as MSTS.”
The experts think that the fixed and cell communication operators not only did not incur losses, but rather doubled their daily profit. “The companies say that the load in their network went up 2 to 2.5 times: people started intensively calling to work, warning about being late and also to tell colleagues and partners about the emergency situation. They also lost landlines,” Yelena Polukarova, analyst of J’Son & Partners, told Kommersant. “It is possible to suggest that on Wednesday the communication operators in Moscow and the suburbs earned at least $11 million.” The participants of the market think that the main losses were carried not by the communication companies but their clients: lost opportunity from blown negotiations, business meetings and morale damage that doubtfully will be ever taken into account.”
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