ARMENIA AND TURKEY TO SIGN ELECTRICITY SUPPLY CONTRACT

ARKA
Oct 19, 2009

YEREVAN, October 19, /ARKA/. Armenian Energy and Natural Resource
Minister Armen Movsisyan said last Friday the agreement on supply of
electrical power to Turkey may be signed later this month.

The preliminary agreement on supply of Armenian power to Turkey was
made in 2008 September by Armenian High Voltage Electrical Networks
Company and an Istanbul-based Unity Group dealing with import and
distribution of power in Turkey. Bu the supply, originally planned to
kick off in 2009 April, was not started because of political problems.

The Minister said the signing of Armenian-Turkish protocols have
given a new push to the plans and a group of senior executives from
the Turkish energy company will arrive in Yerevan later this month
for fresh talks on planned exports of Armenian electricity to Turkey.

He said only power generated in Armenia will be sold to Turkey and
stressed that the volume of sales will be defined after talks with
the Turkish company are finalized.

"We are ready to work with all those companies which will meet our
requirements. In general we are ready to cooperate with Turkish,
Iranian Georgian or Azerbaijani companies,’ the minister said,
adding that Turkey wants to import Armenia-generated electricity to
its eastern regions which lack capacities to produce enough power.

Movsisyan had earlier estimated the initial volume of planned
electricity exports to Turkey at 1.5 billion kilowatt/hours a year.

Armenia’s electricity output totaled roughly 6 billion kilowatt/hours
in 2008.