Armenia Eyes Turkmen Gas

Yerevan, Tehran and Ashgabat have been negotiating the transit of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Armenia through Iran, Armenia's energy minister Armenia Ashot Manukyan told journalists October 20. "A meeting of experts in a trilateral format will be organised to discuss the possibilities of transit and the coordination of tariffs," he said.

According to him, Armenia is also ready to increase gas supplies from Iran, if Tehran offers favourable terms. Iran barters about 1mn m³/d gas with Armenian power.

Turkmenistan started gas exports to Azerbaijan via swaps with Iran in October 2016. During nine months of 2017, Baku imported about 1.3bn m³ Turkmen gas.

"Russian gas tariffs for Armenia are quite low ($150/‘000 m³) If Iran offers a lower tariff, we can consider it, but only for long-term agreements,"  Manukyan said. .

He also said that the implementation of the Armenian-Iranian gas-for-electricity program will continue. "If we compare the average calorific value, then it is significantly different. For Russian gas, the calorific value is clearly much higher than Iran's gas," the minister explained.

Ilham Shaban