ARMENIAN REGULATORS LIMIT IMPACT OF GAS PRICE HIKE
Ruben Meloyan
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01.03.2010
Utility service regulators on Monday kept unchanged the price of
electricity for Armenian households despite the increased cost of
Russian natural gas delivered to the country.
Starting from next month, Armenia will pay $180 per thousand cubic
meters of Russian gas, up from $154 charged by the Gazprom monopoly
since April 2009. The Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC)
on Friday approved a corresponding rise in the domestic gas tariffs
set by the Gazprom-controlled national gas distribution network,
ArmRosGazprom (ARG).
With natural gas used for generating roughly one-third of Armenia’s
electricity, the move raised fears of a knock-on effect on energy
fees that were already raised almost a year ago. However, the PSRC
sanctioned only a modest rise in the cost of electricity supplied
to industrial enterprises. It said the electricity price households
will remain unchanged at 30 drams (8 U.S. cents) per kilowatt/hour
at least until next August.
Robert Nazarian, the PSRC chairman, said Armenia can sustain such a
price thanks to the upcoming launch of a new and much more efficient
unit at a major thermal-power plant located in Yerevan. Nazarian
also noted the fact that it will mainly run on gas supplied from
neighboring Iran. But he did not specify whether Iranian gas costs
Armenia less than the much more extensive gas supplies from Russia.
Artur Alaverdian, director of Armenia’s second thermal power plant
located in the central town of Hrazdan, confirmed that the national
power distribution network intends to buy much more electricity from
the Yerevan plant this year. The Hrazdan facility uses Russian gas
and is owned by a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled Unified
Energy Systems power utility.
Alaverdian criticized the PSRC’s decision not to raise the key
electricity tariff, saying that it was politically motivated. "If the
rules of the game were the same for all market players, the price of
electricity would have to go up," he told RFE/RL.