Consumers in Armenia will have to pay 41 percent more for natural gas beginning April 1 because of an expected increase in gas tariffs for the “blue fuel” imported from Russia.

ArmRosGazprom, a joint Russian-Armenian national gas distribution company, requested the regulatory body to approve such an increase late last year. The Public Service Regulatory Service is expected to make its decision in the coming days.

A hike in gas prices (which may cost individual consumers 136 drams (36 cents) instead of current 96 drams (25 cents) per cubic meter will most of all affect the middle class – those who in recent years installed gas boilers in their homes.

At a cost of about $1,500-2,000, people prefer these systems working on natural gas because they save them money on electricity bills. In November last year, at the beginning of the heating season, firms selling gas heaters saw queues of people who wanted to purchase and install the equipment. Some had to wait for as long as two weeks for their installation turn.

Many now have these natural gas consuming boilers and in wintertime an average family pays 20-25,000 drams ($54-$67) a month for the natural gas they consume. The expected increase would mean that next winter an Armenian family would have to pay between 35,000 and 40,000 drams per month on the average ($94-$108).

Gas boilers or heaters are used in 38 out of 56 apartments in one 14-storied residential building in Yerevan’s northwestern district of Davitashen. One of the building’s residents, Avag Minasyan, says that if prices are raised, he will have to warm the apartment with the use of electric heaters, unless, of course, electricity prices also go up. Minasyan’s wife adds that she would not have purchased a Baxi gas boiler for $1,800 had she known that gas prices would be raised. She also says that it would be easier for residents if they could pay for the gas they use in winter months over the course of the year.

According to the ArmRosGazprom press service, the amount of natural gas consumed by the population in 2009 reduced by 6.1 percent – down to 553.2 million cubic meters. As many as 600,000 households in Armenia currently use ArmRosGazprom’s services, according to the company.

The population consumes 36 percent of the total volume of natural gas sold in Armenia, the rest is used by industrial and other enterprises. Because of the economic crisis gas consumption in Armenia fell by 20 percent and ArmRosGazprom lost a considerable part of projected revenues, closing the financial year with losses.

Leader of the Social-Democratic Hunchak Party Lyudmila Sargsyan thinks that the rise in gas prices will lead to social aftershocks including an increase in prices for other consumer goods affecting the purchasing power of a majority of the population.