YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. At the January 29 press conference, Spokesman for the Armenian President Victor Soghomonian confirmed the existence of the Armenian-Russian-Iranian project on construction of an oil processing plant near Meghri. The project was discussed during the Armenian President Robert Kocahrian's recent private visit to Moscow and his meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Pitin in Sochi. In the words of V. Soghomonian, "there is much work related to this project's implementation". In his opinion, the information on the cost of the project that was published in the Russian press is "extremely exaggerated", while the implementation mechanisms are unknown. He said that only after the final development of the project, it will be possible to speak about the exact amount of oil processing at the plant to be built in Meghri. Discussing several other regional economic projects, V. Soghomonian underlined that "official Yerevan is guided by economic expediency and, at the same time it has always been against exclusively political projects which may have an economic character at the first glance. V. Soghomonian noted that among such projects is that of Kars-Akhalkalak railway's construction, which "only pursues political goals and has no economic substanstiation." To recap, according to "Kommersnat", the plant with the annual oil processing capacity of about 7 mln tons to be built on the border with Iran is evaluated at 1.7 bln USD (minimum) without the cost of constructing the transport infrastructure which will require 700-1,000 mln USD. The same source reported that initially the Armenian side offered Russia to build a plant with the capacity of only 3-4 mln tons but Moscow proposed to nearly double the indicated capacity, and this is in case when, according to "Kommersant", Armenia's demand for oil products does not exceed 250 thousand tons a year. "Kommersant"'s sources also note that the above mentioned project is political as its purpose is to create an oil processinng capacity for Iran outside this country.

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