The statement Interfax quoted reads that “from 25 September the delivery of natural gas to Armenia along the North Caucasus-Transcaucasia trunk pipeline has resumed” and that the transport had been “temporarily suspended in connection with a complex of planned preventive and repair work on the said pipeline on the territory of the Russian Federation”. By the company’s earlier statements as Interfax paraphrased them, the 10 days ran on internal reserves and the Iranian flow. Armenia’s only pipeline from Russia crosses Georgia.
Two prices are on the record for the same molecule. Simonyan’s, at a briefing on 16 September reported by Arka, was “$165 per 1,000 cubic metres at the border”, unchanged since 1 January 2019 under what Arka calls the ten-year price agreement of 2022; Interfax’s background line on Friday gives $177.5 per 1,000 cubic metres, valid to the end of 2026 or the start of 2027. The household tariff stands at 143.7 drams per cubic metre.
Armenia’s only pipeline from Russia crosses Georgia.
At the same briefing Simonyan answered the question of dependence with a list: “Who said that we are going to replace dependence on one country with dependence on another? We are preparing to buy gas from all possible sources, simultaneously from Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey.” His “single pipeline” line and the EU Council’s trade measures for Armenia, both of Thursday, are in the week’s record; the price after the current agreement is the open line, and Friday’s statement speaks of flow and says nothing of price.
Armenia’s other Friday numbers came from the Statistical Committee through Armenpress: foreign trade turnover of $13,274.3 million for January to August, up 3.2%, with exports down 6.5% at $4,623.9 million and imports up 9.3% at $8,650.4 million, and an economic activity index up 7.3% for the same months, construction at +24.7%, services at +12.8%, industry at +7.4% and trade at +0.7%.