Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The gas sphere is posing serious worries for Armenia. The gas pipeline Iran-Armenia, which began working in the mid 2000s, initially belonged to the Armenian side. Armenia and Iran agreed to construct a gas pipeline 1 meter in diameter. Such a pipeline enabled the transportation of gas, which could not only cover Armenia’s demands, but also be exported through Georgia to Ukraine. However, the Russian side pressed the vulnerable Armenian authorities and they yielded to Russia which wasn’t interested in gas export from Iran through Armenia to Georgia. As the result, the diameter reduced to 700 mm, and the gas pipeline began to provide the Armenian-Iranian program “gas for electricity.”
We can understand the aggressive policy by Russian energy concerns which captured key positions in the Armenian energy system, but it is not clear what interests the Armenian authorities have. The second president of the country, Robert Kocharyan, said that “gas for electricity” was good business – gas exported to Armenia from Iran turned into electricity and returned to Iran. The Armenian authorities treated an opportunity for alternative gas as business rather than as a strategic leverage which could improve Armenia’s position in the region.
The climax of the energy security policy provided by the Armenian leadership was a decision by Kocharyan to give the gas pipeline Iran-Armenia to the company ArmRosGazprom in 2007. For sure, the control over the gas pipeline enabled Gazprom which possesses 80% of ArmRosGazprom to protect its positions in the European gas market from the undesirable Iranian rival.
However, what did Armenia gain from this? Statements by Armen Movsisyan that Iranian gas is more expensive than Russian gas seem strange and doubtful. Moreover, recently the Iranian ambassador in Armenia Mohammad Reisi said that Iranian gas wasn’t more expensive than Russian.
Unfortunately, the energy policy of Armenia in the past 10-15years has been aimed only at the so-called technical security without a consideration of any political component.
Armenian power economy is developing rapidly, but it doesn’t belong to Armenia.
From the technical point of view, security improved due to implementation of new technologies, new equipment, including modernization and so on. But in the political sphere Armenia’s energy security is reduced to zero because of “wise” policy of the Armenian authorities.
As the result of nontransparent deals Russia received key facilities. Today the major and the most important power facilities don’t belong to Armenia, except for the Nuclear Power Station and the Vorotan hydroelectric power chain. In the early 2000s experts of the Ministry of Energy developed a report for the government, which said that Vorotan must not be given to a private investor or a foreign state because Vorotan was a main controller of our power system. The Vorotan chain was withdrawn from the privatization program. However, some “caring” hand included Vorotan into this list again; and according to some information, the future purchaser of Vorotan will be the American company ContourGlobal.
