Azerbaijan to Increase Gas Supplies to Georgia

TBILISI - Azerbaijan is gearing up to supply an additional annual total of 500 million cubic meters to Georgia, the president of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said at the second meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Baku on Monday.

According Azerbaijan’s state news agency, SOCAR has already provided 800 million cubic meters of gas to Georgia per year from the Shah Deniz gas field and 5.1 million cubic meters of gas via the Hajigabul-Gardabani gas pipeline.

“We’ve managed to increase the supply through that route to 1.5 billion cubic meters, as well as to 1.5 billion cubic meters via a pipeline connecting the two countries in Azerbaijan’s Gazakh district,” Abdullayev said.

He noted that Azerbaijan is steadily increasing its volume of gas supplies to Georgia.

“We can use a part of that gas volume in Azerbaijan and supply the remainder to Georgia and Turkey,” he added.

Azerbaijan exports gas to Georgia via a pipeline linking the two countries. The annual gas pumping capacity of this pipeline exceeds 2.5 billion cubic meters.

Some 750 to 800 million cubic meters of annual gas supplies are being sent to Georgia from the Shah Deniz field, 1.4 bcm by SOCAR, and 200 mcm from Russia.

By Tamar Svanidze

Edited by Nicholas Waller