168: Ahead of the expected increase in gas prices, the PSC puts a soft cushion in the city

Despite the fact that the Public Services Regulatory Commission has decided to review the price of gas sold to the population on its own initiative and leave it unchanged, this does not mean that it will not become more expensive from next year. The commission approved tariffs, knowing full well that they would be in effect for a number of months.

“Practically, with this decision, until the end of the year, until December 31, we closed that issue. “Gazprom Armenia” can take such an initiative from January 1, if there are objective reasons and such problems that the tariff should be revised,” says the president of the PSC, Mesrop Mesropyan, indirectly making it clear that gas tariffs may increase from next year.

As is known, the term of the Russian gas import contract at the current price is coming to an end.  After that, it is expected that Armenia can receive Russian gas at a much higher price than it receives today. The Armenian authorities have been informed about this for a long time. The Russian side warned months ago that it could unilaterally suspend or cancel the preferential supply of a number of goods to Armenia, including gas.

Let’s remind that Russia sells gas to Armenia without export duty. And the export duty is 30 percent. If it is included in the price, the Russian gas supplied to Armenia will become more expensive. We are not talking about another possible price increase yet.

The Russian side has repeatedly announced that Armenia receives Russian gas at preferential prices as a strategic partner, and this is a free investment of the Russian side in the Armenian economy. In case of removing itself from that status, Armenia will be deprived not only of receiving gas at preferential prices, but also can buy Russian gas at international prices. The recently deepening tension in Armenian-Russian relations increases the possibility of this. Against the background of that tension, the Russian side has already managed to impose restrictions on the export of many Armenian products.

The authorities hoped that these problems would be resolved soon. Nikol Pashinyan announced that he would go and solve all the issues immediately after the elections. He said that he has an arrangement for a meeting with the President of Russia.

A month has passed since the elections, but Nikol Pashinyan has not gone anywhere.

Moreover, the Russian president has not only not congratulated him, not only is he not ready to accept him, but also seems to be out of touch with him. Perhaps that was the reason why Nikol Pashinyan had to have a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of Russia the other day.

“At the initiative of the Armenian side, the President of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Mishustin, had a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan. The heads of governments discussed topical issues of cooperation in the trade-economic, scientific-technological and cultural-humanitarian spheres,” the press of the Russian government announced after the telephone conversation. the service.

The press service of the Armenian government repeated the same, of course, without mentioning that the telephone conversation took place on the initiative of the Armenian side. But the problem was not at all whose initiative the telephone conversation took place. Judging by the brief content of the announcement about it and even more, Nikol Pashinyan’s silence, the conversation did not go very smoothly. There is no mention even of the Russian Prime Minister congratulating Nikol Pashinyan.

It is clear that the main purpose of this telephone conversation was to solve the problems of exporting Armenian products in the Russian market. But Nikol Pashinyan’s silence shows that nothing has been achieved. Otherwise, now Facebook was flooded with it.

This proves once again that the Armenian-Russian relations have entered a rather deep transformation, and its consequences can be felt not only by the exporters of Armenian goods to the Russian market, but also by the entire population of Armenia, through a possible increase in the price of gas, even a sharp increase.

What the National Gas Commission did by leaving the gas tariff for the population temporarily unchanged, does not mean that there is no longer a risk of gas tariff increase. On the contrary, these risks are becoming increasingly relevant.

Today, as long as the population does not face an increase in tariffs, the PSC did not do the citizens a favor by leaving the tariffs unchanged. Tariffs should have been lowered a long time ago. But instead of the population, they decided to lower the price of gas supplied to thermal plants.

From August 1, thermal plants will receive gas for only 91.1 dollars, almost twice lower than the price at which Armenia buys gas. Until now, CHPs received gas for 146.2 dollars. We will not say at whose expense they lowered it, but it is clear that they did it to avoid an increase in the electricity tariff. This year, the share of thermal plants in energy production has increased dramatically, significantly increasing the pressure on electricity tariffs.

With this step, in fact, they tried to control the increase in the price of electricity. But it is clear that it is also temporary. if the Russian gas supplied to Armenia became more expensive and no equivalent replacement resources were found, the price of electricity cannot be avoided either.

By the way, instead of reducing the prices of gas sold to the population, the PSC found it appropriate to increase the salaries of “Gazprom Armenia” employees, making an exception for high-ranking management personnel. He increased the average salary by 45 thousand, making it 303 thousand drams.

But, probably understanding the coming of the heads, he warned that in case of a possible increase in the price of gas imported from Russia to Armenia, those amounts may be reduced from the tariffs again.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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