OREANDA-NEWS. September 25, 2009. Astana. 3 September. Rating service of Standard & Poor's agency confirmed long-term credit rating "ВВ+" to national electricity grid operating company KEGOC, as stated in published S&P Press-Release.

Rating forecast is "Stable". Rating is deleted from CreditWatch list with negative forecast where it was included on 16 June 2009, as noted in the report.

"Rating actions show our expectations regarding the fact that KEGOC will further continue to obtain ongoing support from government of Kazakhstan and our opinion that the probability of emergency state support is "very high"", - Sergey Gorin, credit analyst of Standard & Poor's, mentioned, and his words being cited in the Press-Release.

"Stable" forecast, as pointed out in the report, reflects similar forecast under sovereign ratings. Creditworthiness of the company will depend to a great extent on further state support. "If the government reconsiders the level of state support, the KEGOC rating may by downgraded due to relatively weak own creditworthiness of the company", - S. Gorin said.

"Besides if we come to the conclusion on downing their current ratio or in case of occurrence of the signs concerning state support reduction, we can level down our valuation of companies’ own creditworthiness characteristics and (or) downgrade their credit ratings.

Higher than expected operating and financial results, financial profile improvement and more evident state support can make the rating increase possible", - stated in Press-Release.

KEGOC performs the functions of System Operator of the Unified Power System of Kazakhstan, with the main objective to provide secure functioning of UPS and to carry out reliable control of National Power Grid.