Armenia has appeared in a rather inconvenient situation in regards with the launch of the Armenia-Iran gas pipeline.
According to the experts if Armenia uses that gas pipeline then we might have certain reduction of the electrical power fee due to the calories of the Iranian gas. The calories or energy heat of the Iranian gas is higher than the Russian one. Said in a more simple language less time is going to be needed to boil water on the gas stove. As a result the resident is going to spend less gas and will be able to save money on that. Besides that we receive the filtered Russian gas; however Iran imports gas the way it produces without filtering it. There are about 13 components in the Iranian gas, based on which production can be launched. The Iranian gas is also full with liquid, butane gas, which Armenia currently imports from Russia and Iran. As manager of the Armenian-Iranian pipeline it is clear that Gazprom is going to filter the Iranian gas on its own and is going to become the monopolist of the Armenian market. And at this stage the quality elements of the Russian and the Iranian gas will be equalized and the residents will not know the gas of which country they are consuming. Armenia is going to provide electrical power to Iran for the gas received and in the vent of the rise of the international price of gas Armenia would possibly have some profits. In the current political situation (if Armenia refuses the Russian gas then Georgia may appear in an energetic crisis. On the other hand Georgia has created problems when exporting from Armenia) Armenia must for a while refuse the Iranian gas. However, Armenia could really become an energy exporting country if received the Iranian gas. And this exportation would go not to Europe as we all dream because of the closed borders but could go to Iran and to the East. Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan is only 20% electrified and has unlimited demand for electricity. Armenia stays away from these programs for choosing Russia as its partner although Armenian statesmen often like to say that the important thing is not who the manager is but what policy the country undertakes. It is interesting that the Armenian officials have started to consider the 5th block of the Hydro-Electric Station (HES) of Hrazdan the property of Russia despite the fact that it by its documents still belongs to Armenia. The problem is that the Russian side has demanded to conduct an international audit of the 5th block, the result of which the British Auditing Company has informed the Russians that according to international laws the Armenian side cannot directly sell the 5th block to Gazprom. This strategic structure can be sold at least by the decision of the NA. Russian decided to offer the Armenian government to conduct the process in accordance with the Armenian legislation in order to avoid further problems. The British experts have offered to authorize the State Property Management Bureau to solve the issues of the sale as a first step, which wasn’t unanimously accepted by the government. Although the 5th block of the HES of Hrazdan formally belongs to the Armenian side, the Russians have already started their preliminary construction and are planning to spend 60 out of the 248 million USD on it. The rest is going to be reimbursed by gas. For the final construction of the structure perhaps 4550 million USD will be required. This means that the electrical power fee is also going to be raised as a result of the mentioned investment. But technically the electrical power should be 40% cheaper as new technologies will be used as a result of the construction of the 5th block. According to the “property against debt” program, this structure is considered the property of Russia and the Russian government hasn’t yet privatized it. And the state as a rule doesn’t implement any investment program. Perhaps it will be very hard to find an owner for the HES in Russia because Russia has its own dozens of similar stations. They also have such stations, which need tremendous investments. The procurement of the Hrazdan HES was only the continuation of the Russian energetic strategy in Armenia. An expert of the energetic sector, who has been specialized in his work for many years and who preferred to remain anonymous claims that 25 million USD is to cheap for the Sevan-Hrazdan Cascade. We ourselves will need at least 2.5 billion USD to construct a similar thing in Armenia. Russia can benefit this transaction without investments. By the Iranian financing the functioning of the Arax and Meghri HES’es remain in the first planning stage.