YEREVAN, September 8. / ARKA /. Armenia will not benefit if deliveries of Russian gas are paid in Russian rubles, Armenia’s national Russian-owned natural gas network, Gazprom Armenia CEO Vardan Harutyunyan said in an interview with Gos Armenii (Voice of Armenia) Russian-language semi-weekly.

On Monday  Russian energy ministry and Armenia’s energy and natural resources ministry signed a protocol in Moscow amending the agreement on the formation of prices for the supply of natural gas to Armenia. The document establishes the legal reduction of the base price for the supplies of Russian gas to Armenia from $189 to $165 per 1,000 cubic meters. However, the price for households and corporate consumers in Armenia will not be lowered.

Harutyunyan said  Russia is selling gas to other countries for US dollars. He added that Armenia can shift to paying for gas in rubles, but in this case it will have to spend US dollars to buy Russian  rubles, and the problem is that there is not so much rubles in Armenia’s currency market.

"In other words, it will be necessary to convert Armenian dram to rubles via  dollars. And this conversion would result in lost of  additional amounts, which in turn would  have an impact on gas prices," he said.

According to Russian energy ministry, duty free supplies of natural gas to Armenia amounted to more than 1 bln cubic meters. In 1H 2015, Gazprom supplied 886 mln cubic meters of gas to Armenia.

Armenia’s national natural gas operator Gazprom Armenia is 100% owned by Russian Gazprom. It deals with transportation and storage of Russian gas to Armenia, its distribution and sale, as well as reconstruction and expansion of gas transmission system and underground gas storage facilities.-0- -