A1pplus

| 19:13:33 | 08-07-2005 | Social |

CHANGES EXPECTED IN THE GAS FIELD

The tariffs on gas will no be raised in Armenia. Not yet. «We have had no
such offer» announced the president of the company «ArmRusGasArd» Karen
Karapetyan. He said that despite the fact that Russia has informed about his
intention to raise the tariffs.

Today the Public Services Regulating Committee discussed and adopted a
document which will give new rights to «ArmRusGasArd» in the gas supplying
and control field. The document is called «Rules of Gas Supplying and
Consuming» (RGSC). That is, from now on only «ArmRusGasArd» is responsible
for gas supplying control.

As a result of an hour of discussions only the members of the Committee were
pleased. The representatives of the non-governmental organizations
representing the profits of the consumers, as well as the authorities of
«ArmRusGasArd» were displeased with the content of RGSC.

The head of «ArmRusGasArd» Karen Karapetyan mentioned that there are
provisions in RGSC which cannot be realized by «ArmRusGasArd», and in case
of realizing there will be supplementary expenses and difficulties, which
will harm the profits of the company.

As for the representatives of the profits of consumers, they insisted that
the adoption of RGSC must be postponed for a month so that they could clear
up the duties and responsibilities of the suppliers and consumers. They also
claimed that the document is worse than the temporary rules regulating since
2001.

By the way, the document must enter into vigor on 2006 January 1.