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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Tajikistan
Index
Tajikistan's domestic energy supply situation is dominated by
hydroelectric power. The nation is an importer of petroleum-based fuels,
of which only small domestic deposits are being exploited. Insufficient
access to imported oil and natural gas, a persistent problem under the
Soviet system, became more acute after 1991.
The Soviet central government, which determined energy policy for
Tajikistan, saw the republic's rivers as prime locations for hydroelectric
dams. However, Tajikistanis raised serious objections to the resettlement
of villages, the potential for flooding if an earthquake damaged a dam,
and the prospect of pollution from the factories that would be attracted
by cheap electrical power. Although damming the rivers would increase the
supply of water for irrigation, the central government targeted much of
the water for neighboring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan rather than for
domestic use. Resistance was especially strong in the case of the Roghun
Dam on the Vakhsh River, initiated in 1976 as the largest dam of its kind
in Central Asia. By 1992 some 75 percent of the country's electricity came
from hydroelectric plants, and in the mid-1990s Russia provided aid for
the construction of a new Roghun hydroelectric station.
Deposits of coal, petroleum, and natural gas are known to exist but by
the mid-1990s had yet to be developed. In the Soviet era, the
unreliability of fuel sources in other republics resulted in frequent
power shortages. Fuel supply problems mounted during the transition to a
post-Soviet economy, as oil-exporting former Soviet republics often chose
not to abide by the delivery agreements upon which Tajikistan had
depended. Furthermore, beginning in 1993, independent Tajikistan's
mounting economic problems left it unable to pay more than a small
fraction of the cost of importing energy. Energy providers, especially
Uzbekistan, responded with periodic interruptions of deliveries. Irregular
delivery disrupted industrial production, crop harvests, and the flow of
electricity to residential consumers.
Data as of March 1996
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