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13.09.2013

JOINING OF ARMENIA TO THE CUSTOMS UNION WILL ALLOW PROVIDING LOW GAS RATES – EXPERT

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Joining of Armenia to the Customs Union will allow providing low rates for the natural gas imported to Armenia, said the Deputy Director of “Noravank” Foundation Sevak Sarukhanyan in his interview on Wednesday.

According to him gas price will considerably grow in case if Armenia did not enter the Customs Union which would affect the economy of Armenia.

“Serious question arises whether joining the Customs Union will become a guarantee of invariability of the natural gas rates. There are no such guarantees because the Customs Union is at the stage of formation of common energy policy. But the tendencies in the Russian-Belarus agreement show that what is meant here is the principle of ratable profitability”, - said the expert.

According to him, this does not mean use of domestic Russian prices because transportation expenses should be taken into consideration.

“In our case the main problem is transitional charges to Georgia. If we follow this logic, the gas price should be in the range of $209-210 for one thousand cubic meters. In case with Belarus it is $190 but we leave 10% in Georgia as a transit charge”, - said Mr. Sarukhanyan.

In any case, in his opinion, the price will be much cheaper than the one other countries pay ($350-400).

The second important item of cooperation within the framework the Customs Union is extending of the service life of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant. According to the expert this is important because there is no task of bringing back investments during its exploitation.

“The nuclear plant was built by the Soviet Union and during price computation the necessity of return on investments is not taken into consideration”, - said the expert.

He said that in case with new nuclear power plant the sum might be 60-70 drams and for final consumer – about 100 drams.

“Thus, deep modernization of the operating nuclear power plant proceeds from the energy security of Armenia”, - states Mr. Sarukhanyan.

On September 3 the president of Russia Valdimir Putin stated after the meeting with the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan that “Rosatom”, together with the Armenian experts agreed to work together over the realization of the project of extension of the service life of the power generating unit of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant for another 10 years – till 2026

Armenian authorities are going in fact to build new plant in the place of the operating Armenian Nuclear Power Plant nearby Metsamor city (about 20-30km to the south from Yerevan). This station was put into service in 1976 and currently only its second power generating unit (407,5MWt), which on average produces 40-50% of the electricity produced in Armenia, is operating.

What is referred here is building of one power generating unit having a capacity of 1000MWt. According to “Gosatomnadzor’s” information the cost of a new power generating unit of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant will be about $5 billion. In February 2012 the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Armen Movsisyan stated that the power generating unit would be built in 2019-2020.


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