Georgia to Receive More Azeri Gas Supplies, Mulls Gazprom Deal

TBILISI - Georgian Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze and the President of Azerbaijani State Oil Company SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, have signed an agreement regarding additional gas supplies to Georgia.

Following the signing, Kaladze said current negotiations with Russia’s state-run energy giant Gazprom remain on going, though no agreement had been signed as additional volumes of natural gas are not currently needed.

"We recently sent our last proposal to them (Gazprom), offering to continue receiving gas under the old contract. Namely, we want to receive 10 per cent as raw natural gas," Kaladze.

According to the agreement signed between Kaladze and Abdullayev, Georgia will receive an additional 500 million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan.

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

“Compared to 2012, natural gas consumption in Georgia increased 40 per cent, which called for additional volumes of gas”, Kaladze said.

Kaladze said the new agreement with SOCAR cancels the need to continue negotiations with Iran over natural gas imports.

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 Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field, 1.4 bcm by SOCAR, and 200 mcm from Russia.

By Tamar Svanidze

Edited by Nicholas Waller