After the gas pipe line explosion, everyone is watching news broadcasts and trying to find something new about the latest developments. It is worth to mention that the news agencies didn’t make people get disappointed and starting from January 22 they are periodically informing people.
It is strange that the information the news agencies give is very different and sometimes they contradict each other. We will try to present the information that was given to public in chronological order.
So, just the next day after the explosion, on January 22, they informed that they need about 100 hours to repair in order to get the pipeline working again. The same day M. Saakashvili blamed Russia for exploding the pipe line, after which “Gasprom” company said that they did their best to get the pipeline working again and that there was no need to politicize this issue.
The same day they informed that it might have taken them about 14 days to repair the pipe line due to hard snow and bad weather.
The next day, on January 23, they informed people that the repairs would be over in a day. The head of the pipe line operation group, Viktor Krainov said: “If we go on working like this, we will be able to finish it tomorrow”.
The next day, on January 24, they informed that work had been stopped because of the condensate coming from Georgia. The same day, in the evening, we were officially informed by “the First Channel of Russia” that there was nothing left do. They said that in 12 hours Armenia would be provided with gas. At the same time they explained this by saying that in order to avoid possible problems in the gas system of Southern Caucasus, they had to fill the pipe lines with low pressure gas and that it would take them 12 hours to do that.
On January 25 at 9 a.m. the “Ria Novosti” news agency announced that the gas pipeline would start working in about an hour. But in several hours Armenians learned from other sources that work was still in progress. Yesterday the “Regnum” and “Arminfo” news agencies informed that a part of the work was already done and the workers were already welding the pipes.
We tried to get information from the “Arm-Rus-gasard” company to find out the contradiction of the information provided by news agencies. The PR correspondent of the company, Shoushan Sardaryan didn’t have any news. She told us that she was following the information posted on the Internet and that her colleagues from “Gasprom” assured her that they were intensively working to get the pipeline back up and running. As for concrete dates, she said that it wasn’t clear yet when the pipeline would work.
In addition to all this, at 15:30 the “Ria Novosti” news agency informed that the working group had to repair another part of the pipe line too. “We have made ultra-voice checks around the place where the explosion took place and alas we saw that there is work to do there too”, said the deputy director of the “CaucasTransGaz” company, Igor Tkachenko.
We decided to ask for correct information from this company, which is the “Gasprom” company’s branch. Thy informed us that they had not finished up and that they didn’t have any information. Later we told them that this was what their director had said, and they assured us that they would find out. Later we called them again and they failed to give us correct information and said that they had already informed the previous day that work was almost finished and at that moment they had not encountered any other problems. So when will the pipeline be ready? “We can’t say anything. Anyway we do our best to provide good quality so as not to have any problems in the future”, said Elena Vladimirovna and meanwhile added that unexpected difficulties could prolong the solution of the problem.
The situation wasn’t clear till 9 p.m. yesterday. Anyway, questions arise after all this information First of all, can we say that we are in this situation by chance? Or can we say that the famous “Russian First Channel” television network is making all this up?
In any case, the “Gasprom” company and its branches can provide gas to Armenia, but they are prolonging the solution of the problem due to some reasons. One of the obstacles is not connected with the bad weather, but with the bad relationships between Russia and Georgia.
Anyway, whereas Georgia gets 2 million cm gas from Azerbaijan per day, we, on the other hand, don’t have that opportunity. Currently, Armenia uses the gas of the depots of Abovyan city, where there are 80 million cm of gas. On January 22 Armenia used 5,3 million cm gas, and on January 23 – 5,2 million cm gas. According to the “Arm-Rus-gasard” currently there are no limitations in providing gas. They have already stopped providing gas to the electric power station of Hrazdan, which produces electricity to export to Georgia.
Regarding how long we will be able to use the gas we have, the press-secretary of the “Arm-Rus-gazard”, Sh. Sardaryan said: “If they finish their work and get the pipeline up and running in the promised time, there will be no problem with providing gas”. How can we speak about any promised terms when it is not clear when the work will be finished? “I can’t answer to this question because the terms are being changed all the time due to different reasons”, said Sh. Sardaryan.
But before that, in her interview given to the “Regnum” news agency, Sh. Sardaryan had said that if the problem is not solved till January 26, they would have to make some limitations on providing gas.