Gas Prices May Increase In Armenia Due to Dram Depreciation: Haykakan Zhamanak

Next February-March (2015) the Gazprom Armenia company may apply to the Committee on Public Services Regulation to ‘adjust’ the bid for the gas tariff, writes the Haykakan Zhamanak daily. “The issue is that the current tariff is fixed at 410 AMD per dollar, while the dollar’s current exchange rate reaches 460 AMD. While Gazprom Armenia is buying gas from Russia with dollars ($189 per 1000 cubic meters), the Armenian consumer pays with dram, therefore the dram’s depreciation subsequently leads Gazprom Armenia to losses,” writes the paper.

Haykakan Zhamanak stresses that in order to avoid losses from gas tariffs, with the current exchange value, it would need to at least increase the tariff by 5.7% and consumers would no longer pay 156 AMD per cubic meter, but 164 AMD.

“However, taking into consideration the necessity of the tariff increase, which almost coincides with the time-frame of Armenia entering the EEU, it shouldn’t be ruled out that due to political reasons the tariff increase may be delayed until the summer of 2015.”