NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIAN SIDE ON PRICE FOR GAS IMPORTED TO ARMENIA
STILL CONTINUE
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, NOYAN TAPAN. The negotiations with the Russian
side on the price for natural gas continue and it is not clear
yet when they will be over. Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed
about it at about 2:00 pm, on March 31, by RA Ministry of Energy
Press Service. The same source neither refuted nor confirmed the
rumours that for the purpose of avoiding the growth in price for the
supplied gas Armenia gave Russia the 5th block of Hrazdan HPP and the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. Nevertheless, in response to the question,
if the above-mentioned variants are among the issues to be discussed,
they said at the Press Service: “There are many variants and they
will be made public only after achieving a final result”. To recap,
during the March 29 working meeting of RA President Robert Kocharian
and RA Minister of Energy Armen Movsisian it was decided to continue
the negotiations with the Russian side on gas price and to submit the
package of proposals to be formed at the end of them to the public
after coordinating it with the President. By the March 10 decision
of the Public Services Regulatory Commission a tariff for natural
gas higher than the previous one by 50% has been already set for the
population, 90 thousand drams for 1000 cubic meters of gas (about 200
USD, and a tariff higher by 85%, 146.5 USD, for big consumers). The
new tariffs will come into force on April 10.