In any case, it is hardly possible that such a serious company like “Gazprom” has appended information in their web page by chance. As for this information, a lot of people have already started to make assumptions on the basis of this sentence. For instance reporter of “The New-York Times” newspaper, Roman Elagin writes, “Armenia successfully sold its future visions of energetic development at low prices in this phase. “Gazprom” company is the only one to import gas to Armenia. Armenia could diversify the sources of gas import. But by controlling the pipe line “Gazprom” can also control the activities of its competitor”.
Now our officials say that it was a mistake and “Gazprom” has already taken this sentence out of their web page. According to “Regnum” they were informed from this company that they had just revised the information and corrected it. As for the rumors that the Russian company will get some gas units besides the fifth bloc of Hrazdan electric station, they didn’t say anything about that. Reporter of “The New-York Times” newspaper, Andrew Cramer, tried to get information from “Gazprom” as to whether by buying the pipeline they want to stay out of competition or not. The reporter from “Gazprom” said that they were not going to stand in the way of importing gas from Iran and said that they didn’t understand why they would buy a pipeline if they didn’t want to use it. This means that the reporter of “Gazprom” indirectly approved the information that they wanted state control over the gas pipeline. It is hard to say. But the statement of the RA energy minister Armen Movsisyan stating that the gas pipeline can’t be sold because its construction is not finished yet and doesn’t have any stocks is already suspicious. But on the other hand the construction of the Hrazdan electric station fifth bloc is not finished either. As for the fifth bloc, it’s clear what the officials are saying: they are trying to justify themselves and make us sure that this was a successful deal. As a result of this their announcements contradict each other. For instance yesterday Andranik Margaryan said that the bloc was not sold with the purpose of fighting against the gas price increase because the price was the same: $110. “Selling the bloc doesn’t concern the gas price at all”, said the prime minister. Let’s take a look at what the president said regarding this deal, “We managed to come to an agreement of getting gas for cheap prices during the next three years, which, of course, will support the export of Armenian products”. Maybe they all have arranged what to say beforehand.
As it was expected, as well as the speaker of the National Assembly, Arthur Baghdasaryan thinks that this deal is successful for us. If you pay attention to the announcements of our officials you will discover an interesting thing. It turns out that the purpose of the negotiations was not to set a cheaper price than $110, but to make sure that it will not be increased during the coming three years. And only for this purpose they gave (I am sorry, successfully sold) the fifth bloc of the Hrazdan electric station. In fact, the Russians didn’t make any compromises and insisted on their prices till the end. And now our officials have to demonstrate that their goal was not to make the prices down, but something else. The most interesting thing is that according to Robert Kocharyan everyone should like this deal. Regarding the announcements of oppositional parties concerning this issue Robert Kocharyan said, “There are political powers in Armenia which are always complaining”. The main idea that our officials say regarding this is the following: the fifth bloc was not paid attention to and the Government had to spend huge sums each year to keep it, that is why this is a very good deal for us. But several days ago they were so happy to speak about the Iranian pipeline program. “Iran has never been a potential buyer. Iran didn’t want to buy the Hrazdan electric station, they just wanted to provide financial support for it for 20-25 years, after which Armenia had to return that investment either by paying or providing electricity for them”, said A. Margaryan yesterday.
It is strange but we have always thought that it is much more profitable to exploit electric stations on the basis of financial support. First of all it continues being state property, and then Armenia will have to return this investment by supplying electricity. We don’t understand why Andranik Margaryan said this as a counterbalance to the Iranian program, because after reconstructing the bloc it will work so effectively that in a couple of years we will benefit twice more. For example according to the preliminary arrangement, Iran had to get 3kwt energy against 1cm of gas provided. Regarding this specialists say that the energetic bloc could produce 5,5kwt energy by using 1cm of gas. There is a high demand for electricity in Iran, and Armenia could sell this extra 2,5kwt energy to Iran for good prices. Probably this program will work not depending on who the owner of the bloc is. The difference is that the income will not be for the state budget, but for the stockholders of “Gazprom” company. Some governmental parties criticize people saying such things, claiming that they are not professional and make wrong calculations. But we wonder whether they have made serious calculations and analysis before making this agreement or not.
The only benefit we will get is that the Government will pay for a part of gas that we use. But this will not be done always. Andranik Margaryan says that next year the existing price (65 dram) may be increased a little bit. In fact this is logical. Everyone understands that sooner or later we will have to pay as much as the others do. The problem is that this increase shouldn’t be done rapidly, because it may bring to negative results. If the Government doesn’t change the proportion of price reimbursement slowly, in three years we will fall into a crisis. In the future “Gazprom” will fix a higher price than what we pay now. In several years we will not have any resources to cover these expenses, nor will we have anything to sell and our economy will be faced with a crisis because we will have to pay twice or thrice the price.
In order to instill this in our economy, the Government will have to change the proportion of reimbursement slowly. This is serious, but specialists say that they will change the proportions only after 2007, after the elections. No one wants to start inflation before the elections and lose their reputation.