Heads of Energy Ministries of Armenia, Russia, Iran and Georgia to meet in Yerevan

According to the source, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Levon Yolyan, Minister of Energy of Russia Aleksandr Novan, Minister of Energy of Iran Hamid Chitchiyan and Deputy Minister of Energy of Georgia Ilia Eloshvili will take part in the meeting. It is planned to discuss and sign roadmap of construction of South-North power corridor during the meeting

 

Earlier Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Levon Yolyan informed that the meeting will be held on April 11-13 in Tbilisi, however nothing is reported about the reasons of changing the place of the meeting. 

 

To note, the matter concerns the construction of Iran-Armenia-Georgia-Russia power transmission line.  The construction of the third transmission line with a capacity of 400MW will last for half a year.  According to the Iranian mass media, the construction of the third line will be conducted at the funds of "Sedarat" Iranian Development Bank. Executive Director of the Bank Ali Saleh Abadi stated that the bank will provide 83 mln EUR for finishing the project. Iranian Sanir Company is the contractor of the project.  The Armenian government provided tax and custom benefits to the company for the project implementation. The Iranian side will provide the funds to Armenia as a loan, which will be paid off by supplying electricity.

 

The Armenian government in its turn will provide 27.5 mln EUR as co-financing. The total cost of the project is around 107 mln EUR. With the help of this power transmission line Iran intends to enter energy market of Georgia and Russia through Armenia-Georgia power transmission line, which is being constructed.  The agreement on construction of the third line was signed in 2004 but because of sanctions and lack of financing the construction was postponed. The construction of power transmission lien with a 279km length will allow increasing the capacity from current 350MW to 1000 MW.