The Armenian official did not provide details as he answered a question from a pro-government lawmaker regarding the issue.
Grigorian said that the matter is part of discussions about the currency for the distribution of customs duties within the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russia-led economic grouping of five former Soviet countries, including Armenia.
“I cannot promise that this issue will be solved now, because there are objective reasons. But today it is at least being discussed in a global sense, and I think that at some point it will become a much more specific agenda,” the deputy prime minister said.
For years, especially since joining the EEU in 2015, Armenia has been raising the issue of conducting trade in energy resources, including natural gas, in rubles within the EEU space.
Official reports in Armenia regularly say that the matter is part of ongoing discussions.
Amid Western sanctions imposed on Moscow for invading and waging an aggressive war against Ukraine, including a ban on transactions in dollars, euros and other hard currencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on March 23 that Russia will start forcing “unfriendly countries” – including all European Union states and the United States – to pay for their natural gas supplies in rubles.
The decision came after a dramatic depreciation of the Russian ruble as a result of the crippling sanctions imposed by the West.
Armenia is not on the list of “unfriendly countries” that Moscow published earlier in March. But despite being also a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, Armenia has mostly maintained neutrality on the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine.
Despite official Yerevan’s statements that it seeks trade with Russia in rubles when it comes to the supply of natural gas and other energy resources, Armenian experts are skeptical that the Kremlin will actually agree to receive payments in the Russian currency given the acute demand for hard currency in Russia.
In a recent interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, former governor of Armenia’s Central Bank Bagrat Asatrian also said that payments for Russian natural gas in rubles involved technical difficulties as well.
“I don’t believe that Russia will agree to that and start selling energy to us in rubles. Besides, it also involves difficulties related to the pricing issue. As you know, there is a notion of international prices for energy resources, which are estimated in dollars,” Asatrian said.
Annually Armenia imports more than 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia. At the border, Russia’s gas giant Gazprom sells it to its Armenian subsidiary for $165 per 1,000 cubic meters, but Armenian users pay almost twice as much for the natural gas supplied to their homes.