Armenia does not need Iranian gas at present

According to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia, the Armenian side has not stated that it will start receiving natural gas from Iran on October 13. “Armenia will receive natural gas only if there is a necessity for it. At the moment there is no such necessity,” said Lusine Arutunian, the Press Secretary of the Ministry.

The Director of the Iranian National Natural Gas Company, Rasul Salmani, had made a statement about supplying Armenia with Iranian gas from October 13. According to Salmani, to begin with Armenia would receive a small amount of gas, but from 2009 it would get 2.3 billion cubic metres. Iran would receive 3.3-billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from Armenia in return.

The gas pipeline connecting Iran and Armenia was opened on March 19, 2007 by the Presidents of the two countries, Robert Kocharian and Mahmud Ahmedinejad. The 100 kilometre-long Iranian pipeline starts at Tabriz and ends at Megri, over the Armenian border. It then proceeds from Megri to Sardara.

Armenia currently gets its natural gas from the pipeline running through Georgia. Russian Gazprom is the only gas supplier for Armenia at the moment. In 2007 Gazprom supplied Armenia with 2.05 billion cubic metres of natural gas.