ANDRANIK MARGARYAN: NO ONE CAME CLOSE TO FIFTH GENERATING UNIT
Lragir.am
10 April 06
The more the Armenian high officials comment on the deal of selling
the fifth generating unit of the Thermal Power Plant of Hrazdan to
Russia to compensate for the price of gas, the more obscure, mysterious
and a little ridiculous the deal seems. On April 10 news reporters
had an opportunity to enquire from Prime Minister of Armenia about
the sale of the fifth generating unit of the Thermal Power Plant,
especially that Andranik Margaryan had stated that the problem of
gas would not be settled through transfer of property.
“We did not transfer the fifth generating unit to cut the price
of gas, for as you know the price of gas remains 110 dollars. The
sale has nothing to do with the price of gas. It is a deal, and I
think a successful one, for years ago when we wanted to transfer the
generating unit to repay the debt, one of the stipulations was to give
the generating unit for free for them to build it. They did not agree
to this. We put it out to international tender. No one came close
to the fifth generating unit,” says Andranik Margaryan. The first
strange thing about his words is that years ago Russians refused to
take the fifth generating unit for free, whereas now they pay 250
million dollars to buy it at rigorous stipulations, as the members
of the government of Armenia state.
Besides, amazingly for Armenia it is more convenient to sell than to
reconstruct its property on a soft loan and keep the fifth generating
unit. The government of Iran had offered such a loan. “We had an
agreement with Iran on offering us a loan for 20-25 years, which
we would repay in money or electricity,” says the prime minister,
adding that Iran did not want any property from Armenia. Apparently,
Armenia does not want property either.
“And besides, it was a good deal. We sold it at 250 million dollars,
one of the stipulations is to invest 140 thousand million dollars
within two years to operate a 450 megawatt generating unit; this
enhances our energy security rather than threatens it,” says the
Prime Minister of Armenia. It seems that the prime minister does not
worry that the energy sector of Armenia is transferred step by step
to Russia. “But to the private sector, not the government,” he says
in answer. Apparently, only the prime minister knows how private RAO
EES or Gasprom and their daughter companies are.
Andranik Margaryan does not hide that the fifth generating unit of
the Thermal Power Plant simply solved a social problem, allowing
the government to keep their word and not to let life of people and
producers become expensive.
“We will try to keep the price or let it increase but little within
three years. I have promised, and we will not increase the price of
electricity. If hopefully we manage to keep the price of gas on the
same level next year, it will hardly go up in the next three years,”
states Andranik Margaryan.
However, his words reveal that apart from social problems the sale of
the fifth generating unit solved a strategic problem. “We rendered our
industry competitive. In all the other countries, all our neighbor
countries the price of gas caused costs to go up. We managed to
compensate and keep our industries in a mode when they are more
competitive than the other CIS countries,” says Andranik Margaryan.
This is something new in the world economy; Japan or Korea would have
even envied our resourcefulness, and China would have hidden behind the
wall out of shame. Imagine what would happen if we sold everything we
have and compensated. The world economy would fall to our feet, asking
not to make them bankrupt. This is, however, for future, and in the
meantime, in three years, before we will get to future, future in the
face of Gasprom may come to Armenia. The Russians committed to keeping
the price of gas the same within the next three years. And Gasprom
does not come but to increase the price or to demand something. In
this case Armenia has to start thinking what is going to happen to our
competitive industry and poor people when Gasprom comes in three years.
“It is possible that the budget will have funds, and it will partly
be compensated, because this time, when I announced last year, we
had relied on the budget. We had to call a halt to certain projects,
ensure revenues to afford to compensate. That is, it had nothing to
do with the sale of the fifth generating unit, what we had promised,
the government had promised. It was simply a good opportunity,
which enabled us to compensate for more. Otherwise we might not have
been able to offer so much compensation, and it could have been 80-85
thousand, it could have been symbolic. But if there is an opportunity,
it would be better to spend the money for social purposes.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
