ArmRusgasprom is ready to provide its mobile labs for a random testing of the caloric value of the gas supplied in Armenia so as to dispel some consumers' doubts that the quality of the gas is low, CEO of ArmRusgasprom Vartan Harutyunyan said during a public discussion on Monday.
He said that the caloric value of the gas is almost 8,000 Kcal, which is even higher than the internationally required 7,600 kcal level.
President of Armenian Consumers Union NGO Armen Poghosyan suggested setting up a working group and sending a gas container for independent testing to any foreign country, say, the UK, as local experts cannot be trusted.
Harutyunyan said that Armenia has three laboratories that can test the caloric value of gas (at Hrazdan HPP, at Yerevan HPP and at Ararat Cement) and none of them has detected any change in the caloric value of the gas supplied in the country.
Director of the National Metrology Institute Vahan Sahakyan said that 92.2% of Russian gas is methane, 5% is ethane, 1.38% is nitrogen, 0.7% is propane and 0.082% is oxygen.
"It is not a hard job to test the caloric value of our gas, so, I see no need in sending a gas container abroad," Sahakyan said.
In the end, the parties decided to conduct a random testing, but it turned out that even though they in ArmRusgasprom have mobile labs, they have no people who can use them.