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ARMENIA EXPECTS EU TO DISPLAY CAREFUL ATTENTION TOWARDS ITS ENERGY SECURITY: ARMENIAN PRESIDENT
/ARKA/
OCTOBER 7, 2011
YEREVAN
YEREVAN, October 7. / ARKA /. Armenia expects EU to display careful
attention towards its energy security issue, president Serzh Sargsyan
said.
"We respect and are sympathetic with EU's desire to ensure its energy
security and diversify its energy resources, but we also expect it
to be attentive towards our region's energy security and its stability.
Of course, we all want EU's projects to be fulfilled because they
have also a regional component, which is important for ensuring the
stability in the region," Sargsyan said Friday during a joint press
conference with the visiting French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
He said that these projects should ensure proportional development
of the region, so that their results serve the cause of peace, not war.
For its part, the French president said he hopes for peace between
Armenia and Azerbaijan and the only solution can be achieved through
negotiations within the OSCE Minsk Group. He said both parties must
strive for this, also from the standpoint of energy security. He said
France will dispatch a mission of experts to assist Armenia in terms
of civil nuclear power development.
"Armenia needs this assistance, and France is ready to help. On the one
hand, it is necessary to establish political relations with neighbors,
to establish peace in the region, on the other hand, to establish
cooperation with France to develop new energy sources", he said.
Armenia's nuclear power plant in Metsamor is located 30 kilometers
west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following
a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230
light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. Armenian authorities
said they will build a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging
Metsamor facility.
The new plant is supposed to operate at twice the capacity of the
Soviet-constructed facility. Metsamor currently generates some 40
percent of Armenia's electricity.
But the government has yet to attract funding for the project that
was estimated by a U.S.-funded feasibility study to cost at as much
as $5 billion. Under a 2003 agreement Armenian nuclear power plant's
financial flows are managed by Russian Inter RAO UES, owned by Russian
state-run Rosatom corporation.
The agreement expires in 2013. In 2009 Russia and Armenia signed an
agreement on cooperation in nuclear energy sphere whereby Russia
committed to assume 20% of all expenses, estimated at $1 billion
approximately, to build the new reactor. The Armenian government will
cover another 20% of expenses and the remaining part is supposed to
come from investors.
From: A. Papazian
/ARKA/
OCTOBER 7, 2011
YEREVAN
YEREVAN, October 7. / ARKA /. Armenia expects EU to display careful
attention towards its energy security issue, president Serzh Sargsyan
said.
"We respect and are sympathetic with EU's desire to ensure its energy
security and diversify its energy resources, but we also expect it
to be attentive towards our region's energy security and its stability.
Of course, we all want EU's projects to be fulfilled because they
have also a regional component, which is important for ensuring the
stability in the region," Sargsyan said Friday during a joint press
conference with the visiting French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
He said that these projects should ensure proportional development
of the region, so that their results serve the cause of peace, not war.
For its part, the French president said he hopes for peace between
Armenia and Azerbaijan and the only solution can be achieved through
negotiations within the OSCE Minsk Group. He said both parties must
strive for this, also from the standpoint of energy security. He said
France will dispatch a mission of experts to assist Armenia in terms
of civil nuclear power development.
"Armenia needs this assistance, and France is ready to help. On the one
hand, it is necessary to establish political relations with neighbors,
to establish peace in the region, on the other hand, to establish
cooperation with France to develop new energy sources", he said.
Armenia's nuclear power plant in Metsamor is located 30 kilometers
west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following
a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230
light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. Armenian authorities
said they will build a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging
Metsamor facility.
The new plant is supposed to operate at twice the capacity of the
Soviet-constructed facility. Metsamor currently generates some 40
percent of Armenia's electricity.
But the government has yet to attract funding for the project that
was estimated by a U.S.-funded feasibility study to cost at as much
as $5 billion. Under a 2003 agreement Armenian nuclear power plant's
financial flows are managed by Russian Inter RAO UES, owned by Russian
state-run Rosatom corporation.
The agreement expires in 2013. In 2009 Russia and Armenia signed an
agreement on cooperation in nuclear energy sphere whereby Russia
committed to assume 20% of all expenses, estimated at $1 billion
approximately, to build the new reactor. The Armenian government will
cover another 20% of expenses and the remaining part is supposed to
come from investors.
From: A. Papazian