Construction of Meghri HPP to start in 2007 on Iran-boundary Araks

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 10 2006

CONSTRUCTION OF MEGHRI HPP TO START IN 2007 ON IRAN-BOUNDARY ARAKS
RIVER

Construction of Meghri HPP will start in 2007 on the Iran-boundary
Araks river, RA deputy Energy Minister, Ara Simonyan, told ArmInfo
correspondent.

According to him, the RA Government has approved, the day before, an
Interstate draft Contract on HPP construction. After its signing,
Simonyan said, the financing chart of this project will be specified
and the project implementation will stat. As Simonyan underlined, the
project’s feasibility study is completely ready. The project
implementation is envisaged to take 6 years.

RA Energy Minister, Armen Movsissyan, had noted earlier that the
Armenian side emphasizes the Meghri HPP’s construction on the
boundary Araks river with capacity of 140 MW and annual output of 350
mln kWh of electric power. This project, the Minister said, will
become the determining one in the Contract to be signed by the two
states’ Presidents. It is envisaged that the Iranian side will grant
a credit of $150 mln to Armenia. The latter will repay this credit by
electric energy supplies.