Moscow. 28 January 2004. The savings achieved by the entities of RAO "UES of Russia" Holding as a result of cost reduction efforts in 2003 totalled RUB17.6 billion, up RUB3.1 billion from 2002. Since the costs reduction program was launched in the Company in 2001, the overall costs savings throughout the Holding made RUB44.4 billion, which makes 4.2% of all commercial output of RAO "UES of Russia" Holding less the "irreducible" expenses (depreciation, taxes, cost of energy acquired less the network transmission losses, dividends).

The primary avenues for the implementation of the costs management program in 2003 were minimization of fuel costs through reducing the actual consumption of natural gas, coal, and heavy fuel oil (RUB4.2 billion in savings), holding tenders to procure repairs and inventories, including those held via the B2B-energo system (RUB3.0 billion), reduction of production and transmission losses (RUB2.5 billion), optimisation of number of employees (RUB5.5 billion).

Successful implementation of the costs management program in OAO "Lenenergo", OAO "Nizhnovenergo", OAO "Permenergo", and OAO "Sverdlovenergo" made it possible to reduce the electricity rates for the household consumers in Leningrad Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Perm Region, Sverdlovsk Region, and St.-Petersburg by 20% with effect from 1 November 2003.