Deripaska urges Russia hydropower overhaul -paper

MOSCOW, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Russian industrial magnate Oleg Deripaska has proposed splitting state-run RusHydro (HYDR.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) into four companies and taking a stake in a large Siberian dam serving his aluminium plants, a newspaper reported. Deripaska wrote last week to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with a proposal that his indebted aluminium company take a stake in the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric dam, site of a fatal accident in August, Kommersant business daily said on Wednesday.

But the dam, which has not operated since the accident, requires 40 billion roubles ($1.4 billion) in repairs and UC RUSAL, the aluminium firm majority owned by Deripaska, has yet to restructure its $16.8 billion debt to foreign and Russian banks, the newspaper said on its front page.

Kommersant cited an unnamed government source as saying Deripaska had asked Putin to consider splitting RusHydro, which has a monopoly on hydroelectric power generation in Russia, into four separate companies.

A spokesman for Deripaska's industrial holding company, Basic Element, declined to comment on the report when contacted by Reuters.

According to the proposal, the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam itself would be one of the four independent companies within the new structure, Kommersant quoted the source as saying.

UC RUSAL is the world's largest aluminium producer. Several of the company's Siberian smelters were forced to switch to alternative power suppliers after the accident at Sayano-Shushenskaya.

At least 75 people were killed when a turbine room at the dam flooded on Aug. 17. [ID:nLH339111].

In September, the Russian government backed the sale of a 10 percent stake in RusHydro to help fund costly repairs. [ID:nLF329331]

(Writing by Robin Paxton; editing by John Stonestreet)