The Government has made a decision concerning selling state property and fighting against the gas price increase. On the basis of this governmental decision the fifth bloc of the Hrazdan electric station was given to the Russian “Gazprom” company. The payment schedule is the following: $58,8 million in 2006, $70 million in 2007 and $120 million in 2008. The Government will resist and reimburse the gas price increase with the help of this money. In other words consumers using up to 10.000 cubic meters a month will pay 65.000 dram per 1.000 cubic meter instead of 90.000 dram, and in case of using more than 10.000 cubic meters they will have to pay $94,5 per 1.000 cubic meters instead of $146,51. $188,8 million out of the total sum ($248,8 million) will be spent for this purpose, i.e. the rest-$60 million- will be transferred to the state budget. It is worth mentioning that “Gazprom” has taken the responsibility to fully construct, install necessary facilities and exploit this station by 2008.
This is the biggest solution that the brightest brains of our country have been thinking of these months. Do you remember them saying that they would stop this increase with the help of our internal resources? And they needed several months to discover that this internal resource is the fifth bloc.
In our last publications we wrote that the prime minister had said that they wouldn’t give anything to stop the prices increase. We asked him whether what they have negotiated doesn’t contradict what he had said, to which he answered, “No, it doesn’t. You should differ two things: property and actives; we haven’t given anything; we have just given this on the basis of some arrangements and requirements. We have sold the fifth bloc in beneficial conditions for us, which is good in this phase and you shouldn’t connect it with the gas price, because it could be sold in other conditions and the sum received from this could be spent for other purposes. These problems are not connected with each other in the mentioned governmental decision. And the Government has decided to spend this sum to stop the increase and as well as to reimburse this increase to citizens”.
Actually he is trying to find a way out of the difficult situation he is in. Actually he was “cheated”. If he was told that at the end the bloc would be sold anyway, he wouldn’t make such announcements.
Now they say that the fifth bloc would be sold anyway and this is a good deal for us. If the money got from it was spent on other things, we wouldn’t ask so many questions. But is this the best solution when this money is either spent to cover “current expenses” or is stolen? What will we do in three years when we don’t have anything to sell more?
Actually the scenario was the following: Russia, in the name of their company “Gazprom”, didn’t make any exceptions for us as their close partner. They said $110 and that’s all, no more questions. If you have money, you can pay, if you don’t, you can sell us the fifth bloc and reimburse the increase with this money. But in this case we wonder what our authorities have been negotiating these days. If they have been negotiating for other things, it means that those negotiations failed.
You can’t recover what is done already, so now let’s turn to the gas pipe line. A couple of days ago we saw an announcement on the official web page of “Gazprom”, according to which Armenia has also given the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. The next day the RA minister of energy, Armen Movsisyan rejected this and later the mentioned announcement was taken out of this page. What was this? Was this a mistake? Probably “Gazprom” was asked not to spread this news yet. This will be clear soon. But the problem is not solved with this. You can read in the web page of “Gazprom” the following: “On the basis of the document, the fifth bloc of the Hrazdan electric station is to be given to “Gazprom” together with some units of the Armenian gas field”.
What units do they mean? We couldn’t get any information regarding this. Maybe they want to inform this to public as a good achievement on their part in several days.