It cannot be denied any more. We were just missing the real price and now we concretized that as well. In particular, the president of the board of directors of “Gazprom” D. Medvedev has concretized the expected price during the “Vesti Nedeli” program. The graphic showed by the Russian TV channel looked the following way:
Graphic 1. – Gas price for 1000 cubic meters (USD)
Old price New price
Belarus 48 48
Moldova 80 160
Armenia 56 110
Azerbaijan 60 110
Georgia 68 110
As you can see, a similar price is applied for the whole Trans-Caucasus – $110. This also surprised the TV program host S. Brilyov, who asked, “When you say Trans-Caucasus do you mean both Georgia, which is not a very good friend of Russia and Armenia?” Mr. Medvedev easily answered “Yes, and Azerbaijan as well”. No comment is necessary but we’ll present slight interpretation anyhow. Although it is mentioned that everything proceeds on the basis of marketing principles, however, the example of Belarus (the gas price won’t be changed there) shows that it’s not quite like that. The Russians explain the stability of the gas price in Belarus in the following way: the pipeline belongs to “Gasprom” and the land under the pipeline has been rented for a long time. In this case where did the conversations about the international price of gas and the inner gas price raise in Russia go, by which the Russians are trying to justify their steps? It’s simple, Belarus is different for Russia, however, there is one contradiction. Russia doesn’t conduct the same policy with its close partner Armenia as it does with Belarus. No one can deny that in the criteria of “close friend to Russia” we are the first place, second is Azerbaijan and the third – Georgia. And now let’s display the above-mentioned #1 Graphic in another aspect. Let’s see what the percentage of the price raise is.
Graphic 2. Gas price change (%)
Price change (USD) Price change (%)
Armenia 54 96.4
Azerbaijan 50 83.3
Georgia 42 61.7
This graphic clearly shows how we benefit from “strategic partnership”. In the aspect of percentage we have suffered the most, meaning our population will feel the influence of the price increase the most. With this in mind, the words of A. Movsisyan are very interesting. He has proudly said from Sochi: “The price offered by Russia is the most reasonable for Russia. The price is more expensive for other countries. Russia doesn’t negotiate this issue, besides Armenia”. Let’s mention that at the moment of making the announcement the negotiations with Ukraine, which have been going on for 9 months, still continued. Even if it’s like that what’s the use? Didn’t Mr. Medvedev clearly say: “The gas prices for different states are different”? This means no matter if we are a strategic partner of Russia we still have to pay the same price.
Let’s get back to the topic of negotiations. Although no one ever denies the price ($110) we have information from “Armrusgasard” that the negotiations still continue. However, judging from the information we have the negotiations proceed not about the price defined by Russia by the order of payment. It means our side is trying to ensure that our population doesn’t immediately feel the drastic increase of the price. The Russian “Komersant” newspaper has demonstrated this process in brighter colors. “It’s presumed that the Armenians will pay the same amount as in past. In order to cover the difference of the old and new price Armenia will receive a credit from Russia, which will be reimbursed the following way. Some of the stocks of certain Armenian companies will be sold to Russians. ” In fact it’s quite possible that our senior brother might take a few more factories from us. This version is not far from logical assumption, especially if we take into account the fact that the same proposal was made to Ukraine as well, in particular, Russians are trying to acquire supervision over gas provision system of the mentioned country. “We offered Ukraine to maintain 50% of that system and the rest of the 50% gradually give to us at market prices”, said Medvedev.
It’s not yet clear what Russians will demand from us. By considering the professional interest of “Gasprom” it might even be “Armrusgasard” and more clearly the portion of stocks that still belongs to us. It’s very hard to be exact right now but we think that the outcome of negotiations will be clarified soon, most probably by January 1. We say this by making it correspond to the words of D. Medvedev. “If we don’t sign a contract with Ukraine by January 1 then “Gasprom” won’t have any grounds to provide gas for Ukraine.” So logically if we don’t sign a contract by the New Year we might be deprived from gas as well. Our only hope is to wait and see what kind of Christmas present our senior partner has prepared for us.