What do we have and what do we want to have?
It is not a secret for us that currently, Armenia has a lot of energetic problems. The main reporter, RA energy minister Armen Movsisyan also agreed with this. According to him Armenia should do two things: decrease the capacity of imported energy and diversify its resources. Definitely, the shortest way of reaching the first goal is to use our resources effectively. I mean water resources and wind energy. According to the minister the government is adopting a good policy to recruit such investments. Reporter A. Gharabekyan noted that sun energy is not used in Armenia in a duly manner to produce energy and that it is used only for making “dry fruit”. As for the head of energy saving alliance, Astghine Pasoyan, she said that if we save energy effectively we will be able to cut down the capacity of energy usage by about 15-40%.
It was also spoken about the Hydro-Electric Station (HES) and that their effectiveness is not high, and A. Movsisyan informed journalists that it would be clear very soon who would be the next operator of the 5th station of the Hrazdan HES, which will be either “Gazprom” or Iranian “Sanir” company, which is also implementing the construction program of Iran-Yerevan gas pipe line. But at the end of last year he announced that the most possible ones were two Iranian companies: “Sanir” and “MAR”. What changed? Though it is not right to make any assumptions, but definitely this step is connected with the negotiations on the gas price issue with Russia. In this case “Gazprom” may win the competition and the fixed price of 110 USD may change.
Again about gas
According to official information the negotiations are still going on. Though it is not logical, but the new price will already be in effect as of April 10. In fact, the HES of Hrazdan has already applied to the committee on public services to increase the price for energy from 11,37 dram up to 21,36. Although the RA Central Bank and the World Bank think that this increase will not affect the economy much and the inflation level will be kept at a constant 3%, we think that this assumption is illogical. The speaker of the parliament thinks so, “the gas price increase means serious social difficulties for people, means increase of prices on goods and services and will cause serious problems connected with the future economical development”. If we recall, the government has announced that they would do their best not to let people feel this difference much, but as we see it is not so. One of the reasons is also the fact that as a result of negotiations the gas price may decrease and the committee will agree to adopt it. “We believe that in the result of the negotiations, Russia, as Armenia’s strategic ally, will find a good solution”, said Mr. Baghdasaryan, and the energy minister assured that everything would be fine.
With whom should we cooperate?
In regard to the diversification of sources for energy we have some difficulties: we have to either import through the territory of Georgia or from Iran. As Mr. Movsisyan said, “one gas pipeline is not a guarantee”. It was mentioned that we should increase the capacities of gas tankers. After discussing numerous issues they all agreed that the best source for Armenia is atomic energy. First, it will be easier to import the materials and this type of energy is ecologically clean.
To close or not to close?
I think it is worth discussing the issue of the atomic station separately. As we know the draft of taking atomic energy out of the monopoly cover of the state was rejected. But this time it was discussed again. The exploitation period of Metsamor atomic station will be finished in 2016. The EU insists on stopping its operation because it is dangerous. But Mr. Movsisyan says that if the results of monitoring are positive it may continue working. MP Marukhyan said that there are mechanisms to prolong the operation period and advised to prepare documents to apply to MAGATE. This recommendation made Arshak Sadoyan angry: “Foreigners think of our security more than the MPs. What if it explodes?” He also said that in case of privatizing owners may not want to stop the operation in case there is need for that because this will mean loss of income for them. According to him in this case the owners will keep the problems a secret. Th minister said that the atomic station is not a car to break down and there are concrete rules for working and promised Mr. Sadoyan to organize an excursion for him to the atomic station.
Who will build a new atomic station for us?
Let’s discuss the worst-case scenario and assume that the atomic station will be closed in 2016. In the coming 15-20 years Armenia will not be able to invest 1,5 billion dollars to build a new atomic station. It is important for us to build a new atomic station. But where do we get the money from? The government is recommending taking the law on state monopoly on this field out of the legislation and thus attract foreign investors in our country. The minister assures that they don’t mean the existing atomic station, but a new one. He also assures that the energetic security will not depend on who the owner is. The government is responsible for controlling it anyway. It is not bad to give share to the private sector, but there are some other questions. For instance MP Tatul Manaseryan asked how the state was going to make the new owner sell the energy to the Armenian market first and then export the extra energy for example to Turkey. If Turkey gives more money for that energy the state will not be able to prevent the company from selling energy to Turkey because this contradicts the rules of competition and the international institutions, the WTO will criticize this kind of intervention on the part of the state. It is not excluded that after taking this limitation off, a foreign company may become a shareholder of the Metsamor atomic station. There were also suggestions to include all these issues in the discussion agenda but the executive said that it was not the time to discuss it in details. But why do they want to take this limitation out without any detailed discussions? They didn’t give detailed replies to these questions.
What can we do?
Economist E. Aghadjanov thinks that it is not bad to give share to foreign investments but says that we can manage without that too by working out a national strategy draft and using the national capital. According to him the free capital capacity in our country covers over one billion dollars. According to him “we should create good conditions for oligarchs to invest this money in serious economical units instead of building casinos and saunas”. Definitely this was the best recommendation that has been made in this period. At the same time in parallel with oligarchs it is possible to recruit citizens too. At least now we have good economical development and thus can assume that we will be able to build an atomic station in ten years. As for Tatul Manaseryan, he thinks that the economical “brain” is not active. We have either state owned or private owned companies. But there are other forms of property too. As for the atomic station, he also thinks that we can use the Diaspora capital for building a new atomic station. We have published in one of our previous editions that according to the “Forbes” the capital of the Armenian Diaspora in the world covers over 100 billion dollars and probably they will agree to spend 1% of that money for the security purposes of our country.
There were also suggestions to build this atomic station not on the basis of foreign private investments but on the basis of a contract with a third country. It is worth mentioning that recently the deputy to the US secretary of the Department of State, Daniel Frid announced that the issue of investing in this field would be discussed in the US.
The head of the NA commission on financial, budget and economical issues, Gagik Minasyan said that the recommendation didn’t contradict the presented draft. The 100, 90 or 50% of the new atomic station may belong to the state. “We have no way but to build a new atomic station in Armenia. This is the guarantee for our energetic security”, he said and added that he had voted for taking the law out of the legislation.
Generally it seemed as though the executive hadn’t organized these hearings with the purpose of discussing energetic security issues, but rather with the purpose of making them sure that this draft that had been sent back could be adopted. And they partially reached that goal: most of the MPs thought that if the draft were presented in such a good way, then it would be brought up.
All we have to do now is wait until the next discussion.