Negotiations on Importing Turkmen Gas to Armenia via Iran

Armenia and Turkmenistan are negotiating a contract for the purchase of natural gas from the state concern "Turkmengaz," which would allow Turkmen gas to be delivered to Armenia via Iran. This was announced by Artashes Tumanyan, an advisor to the Prime Minister of Armenia, during the 10th session of the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and Turkmenistan held in Yerevan.

In recent years, Armenian delegations have made several visits to Turkmenistan, discussing a number of projects related to energy and various related sectors. Tumanyan highlighted three directions that have been the focus of negotiations during these visits to Turkmenistan.

“The first is the Armenian side's desire to prepare a contract for the purchase of natural gas from the state concern "Turkmengaz," which has involved several phases of negotiations. During these discussions, the expectations and views of the Armenian side were presented, and all technical characteristics of the project have been discussed. The essence of the project is to purchase from "Turkmengaz," organize the exchange through a SWOP scheme, and deliver it to the Iran-Armenia border,” said Tumanyan.

According to him, one of the key participants in the project is Iran, and negotiations have also been held with Tehran, resulting in Iran agreeing to the implementation of this project. “The project also specifies a quantitative indicator for acquiring between 600 million to 1 billion cubic meters of gas. However, I must mention that the work on agreeing upon the gas price, which is a crucial component of this significant contract, has not been completed yet, and negotiations are ongoing,” the Prime Minister's advisor added.

He noted that during these negotiations, the export of Turkmen gas to Georgia via Armenia was also addressed using the same SWOP system. Tumanyan described that the Georgian side has also responded positively to this issue. “If this idea is realized, it will later create an opportunity to make Turkmen gas accessible to the countries of the Black Sea basin,” Tumanyan added.

According to him, the second project in Armenian-Turkmen negotiations involves purchasing electricity from Turkmenistan, which has received positive feedback from Ashgabat. “The Turkmen side has presented us with its price offer, which I believe is acceptable; however, I must say that the Armenian side has yet to find an optimal scheme for the further use of the electricity to be acquired. We initially thought it could be used in the Armenia-Iran gas-electricity program, but we do not have a positive solution yet,” noted Tumanyan. He added that discussions on this topic are also ongoing.

The third direction pertains to the possibilities of acquiring and supplying various products from Turkmenistan’s oil and gas complex to Armenia and, perhaps, to other directions. “Here, the ball is in our court. We need to provide information and consulting support for Armenian interested companies so that they can operate in the Turkmen business environment,” emphasized Artashes Tumanyan.