Of course this is not a good thing, but we must agree that everyone is worried due to the fact that they don’t know just how much the gas price will increase. However, there is one thing we do know: the price is going to go up. But the Russian “Gazprom” company , which supplies gas to Armenia, hasn’t officially announced about gas price changes yet. As for “Armrusgasard”, they explained their announcement in the following way: “Russia has suggested increasing the price from 59 dollars to 110, but it was prolonged till April 1. But the parties are still negotiating on reimbursement issues. We have sent them an application to revise the prices in order to be able to act in a duly manner in case of increase”, said their press secretary Shoushan Sardaryan.
She also said that if reimbursement is made they will make changes in the application to revise the prices. It is worth mentioning that in autumn, Russia announced that they were going to fix one price for all Southern Caucasus countries. Russia increased the prices but our country is still negotiating. One of the proposed suggestions was that the current prices would stay the same if Russia owns 45% of the gas pipe line from Iran that is being built. Another suggestion was also made: to increase the share of Russia in “Armrusgazard” company. It is worth mentioning that 45% of the share of “Armrusgazard” belongs to the Russian government, 45% – to the Armenian government, and the 10% – to “Itera”. Several years ago rumors were going around that Russia wanted to buy the 10% share of “Itera, but the deal wasn’t made. But the recent developments show that Russia wants to be the only owner of “Armrusgazard”, since it is not going to be the only gas supplier in Armenia by 2007. Anyway, “Armrusgazard” has presented an application to the committee on public services, where they suggest increasing the price for 1000 c.m. from 110 dollars to 240 for using 10000 c.m., and in case of using more to reduce it from 175 dollars to 145 dollars. The committee refused to give us any information regarding this. They have ten days to do the math and only after that they will be able to provide information. As for “Armrusgazard”, they said that there were no explanations in their application and they had just suggested increasing the price. Regarding this Sh. Sardaryan said, “We have a right to present applications for price changes. As to what the decision will be, that’s their right”.
So, there is no doubt that the price will change. What’s also true is that “Armrusgazard” sells gas to citizens for double the price. At present they buy gas for 54 dollars and sell to citizens for 130 dollars. The same proportion has to do with the new prices too: they are going to buy it for 110 dollars and sell for 240 dollars. In fact they make 110-120% profit. If the price is increased they are not going to lower the price. But if the percentage stays the same the profit of the company will be more than they have now. If this company made 75 dollars profit per 1000 c.m. before, now this profit will become 130 dollars. The state committee on public services has allowed this company to make a 6% profit and nothing more. So it turns out that the rest of the money is spent on investments, salaries and miscellaneous expenses. But if we have to pay such prices we can hardly believe that “Armrusgazard” gets only 6% profit. On the other hand we can hardly believe that this company spends so much money on their investments and current expenses.
“Armrusgazard” has always justified its attempts to increase the prices by pointing out how the gas is currently supplied. The same explanation is given by the committee on public services. But during all these years they have already done their job, or at least most of it, and now they don’t have to make so many investments. This situation reminds us about what happened with the power distribution companies recently: auditors announced that there were a lot of violations by those companies and that the declared sums of investments were overstated. Perhaps this is what’s going on at “Armrusgazard”. After all, both these companies are under the control of Russians and the management methods are almost the same. In this field “Armrusgazard” uses its monopolistic positions and maneuvers much. We can only hope that the committee on public services will make a good decision this time.