NEFCO signs agreement on wastewater treatment in Sosnovy Bor

NEFCO and the waterworks in Sosnovy Bor, Northwestern Russia, have today signed an agreement on upgrading the local wastewater treatment. NEFCO will grant a loan of 750,000 EUR in a project, which is expected to reduce the discharges of eutrophying phosphorus by some 22 tonnes per year. This corresponds to the annual untreated discharges of wastewater from approximately 30,000 people.

Russia has committed to reduce its national discharges of phosphorus by 2,500 tonnes within the Baltic Sea Action Plan, which was signed in Krakow, Poland three years ago.

The city of Sosnovy Bor, which has some 66 000 inhabitants, is located 80 kilometres west of St Petersburg, Russia. The other co-financers of the project are the Municipal Unitary Water Enterprise Vodokanal, the Russian government, the Finnish Ministry of Environment and the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP). The total cost of the project is 3.3 million EUR. NEFCO has in July this year assumed the chairmanship of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP). This is the first project to be co-financed by NDEP and NEFCO during NEFCO’s chairmanship of NDEP’s Steering Group. NDEP has some 16 active environmental projects in its pipeline.

"This is a very cost efficient project. A similar investment project in the Nordic region would have cost ten times more to reduce a similar amount of phosphorus", says Kari Homanen, Vice President at NEFCO.

Homanen also points out that the other beneficial environmental effects of the project are lower energy consumption costs deriving from the installation of new air compressors, and modern technology for drying the sludge enables environmentally safe final disposal of the sludge. 

Phosphorus will be removed with the help of chemicals. This method is also used in St. Petersburg. One of NEFCO’s environmental priorities is to rehabilitate and maintain the ecological well being of the Baltic Sea. Last year environmental projects co-financed by NEFCO in the Baltic Sea area resulted in the reduction of phosphorus and nitrogen in wastewater by 1,260 and 6,297 tonnes, respectively.

NEFCO is an international financial institution owned by the five Nordic countries. NEFCO mainly finances environmentally-related projects and investments in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus in order to generate positive environmental benefits for the Nordic region. At present, the funds administered by the corporation are valued at some EUR 383 million.

For more information, please contact:
Magnus Rystedt, Managing Director, NEFCO, +358 50 329 6224
Kari Homanen, Vice President, NEFCO, +358 50 3111 047
Mikael Sjövall, Communications Manager, NEFCO, +358 50 3535 045