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Haykakan Zhamanak, Armenia
Jan 31 2007
One more fairy tale
ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF PLANS TO BUILD OIL REFINERY IN ARMENIA
by Hayk Gevorkyan
Last week President Kocharyan went to Sochi to share, as he said,
some ideas with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Soon it became
clear that Russia has decided to build an oil refinery in Meghri. It
is a very original project. It will be the only oil refinery in the
world which is not on the sea front and does not have a railway
substructure. That is to say petrol and diesel fuel produced here can
be transported only by means of road tankers. This is a project that
was put on the agenda in Armenia from time to time before the
elections held here.
[Passage omitted: The author said that the project was put on the
agenda in 2003]
Elections will be held in Armenia soon and all talk about the
economic situation in Armenia is not enough for the election
campaign, which is why the topic of the oil refinery has been put on
the agenda once again. Even Russian experts say that this is a fairy
tale. This plant with a capacity of processing 7m tonnes oil per year
will get raw materials by an oil pipeline from Iran. There is no such
oil pipeline today and it will be constructed and be about 200km
long. The refined oil, let us say petrol and diesel, will be
transported by railway and Iran will be the main consumer of the
products of that plant, but we do not have a railway that would
connect Meghri with different regions of Iran, and it should also be
constructed. Some of the petrol and diesel fuel produced at the plant
will be used by Armenia. But there is no railway that connects Meghri
with other regions of Armenia either. This means that every single
minute a road tanker containing 15 tonnes should leave the plant, but
this will be economically unjustified. In that case, why are they
telling us such a fairy tale?
The Armenian authorities are well aware of the real situation in the
Armenian economy, which is why for campaigning purposes they talk
about "gigantic" programmes from time to time. We have the impression
that the Armenian authorities have already lost the sense of reality
and it seems to them that society is in the same situation. While we
were negotiating with Iran on the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline,
Azerbaijan managed to construct and commission the Baku-Ceyhan oil
pipeline and Baku-Erzurum gas pipeline. When we thought of setting at
least one gas turbine system at the Yerevan power plant, Azerbaijan
had already started setting up four such systems each of which is
more powerful than our nuclear power plant. When we started speaking
about the construction of an oil refinery in Armenia with a capacity
of 7m tonnes per year, Azerbaijan was already preparing a project on
the construction of a plant in Turkey with a capacity of 20m tonnes,
and is now thinking of building a similar plant in Georgia. In a
word, we spend more efforts and energy on propaganda than on good
ideas.
Jan 31 2007
One more fairy tale
ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF PLANS TO BUILD OIL REFINERY IN ARMENIA
by Hayk Gevorkyan
Last week President Kocharyan went to Sochi to share, as he said,
some ideas with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Soon it became
clear that Russia has decided to build an oil refinery in Meghri. It
is a very original project. It will be the only oil refinery in the
world which is not on the sea front and does not have a railway
substructure. That is to say petrol and diesel fuel produced here can
be transported only by means of road tankers. This is a project that
was put on the agenda in Armenia from time to time before the
elections held here.
[Passage omitted: The author said that the project was put on the
agenda in 2003]
Elections will be held in Armenia soon and all talk about the
economic situation in Armenia is not enough for the election
campaign, which is why the topic of the oil refinery has been put on
the agenda once again. Even Russian experts say that this is a fairy
tale. This plant with a capacity of processing 7m tonnes oil per year
will get raw materials by an oil pipeline from Iran. There is no such
oil pipeline today and it will be constructed and be about 200km
long. The refined oil, let us say petrol and diesel, will be
transported by railway and Iran will be the main consumer of the
products of that plant, but we do not have a railway that would
connect Meghri with different regions of Iran, and it should also be
constructed. Some of the petrol and diesel fuel produced at the plant
will be used by Armenia. But there is no railway that connects Meghri
with other regions of Armenia either. This means that every single
minute a road tanker containing 15 tonnes should leave the plant, but
this will be economically unjustified. In that case, why are they
telling us such a fairy tale?
The Armenian authorities are well aware of the real situation in the
Armenian economy, which is why for campaigning purposes they talk
about "gigantic" programmes from time to time. We have the impression
that the Armenian authorities have already lost the sense of reality
and it seems to them that society is in the same situation. While we
were negotiating with Iran on the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline,
Azerbaijan managed to construct and commission the Baku-Ceyhan oil
pipeline and Baku-Erzurum gas pipeline. When we thought of setting at
least one gas turbine system at the Yerevan power plant, Azerbaijan
had already started setting up four such systems each of which is
more powerful than our nuclear power plant. When we started speaking
about the construction of an oil refinery in Armenia with a capacity
of 7m tonnes per year, Azerbaijan was already preparing a project on
the construction of a plant in Turkey with a capacity of 20m tonnes,
and is now thinking of building a similar plant in Georgia. In a
word, we spend more efforts and energy on propaganda than on good
ideas.