Nearly 100% of Georgia’s gas demand will be met by Azerbaijan, which means this year Georgia will no longer buy gas from Russia, Georgia Today reported on January 9, 2018.
Under the decree, approved by Georgia’s Minister of Economy, a balance for natural gas for the year of 2018 has been adopted, which reads that Georgia’s natural gas demand will stand at 2.689 billion cubic meters in 2018.
Georgia will get 2.679 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan, including 1.866 billion cubic meters from SOCAR and 813 million cubic meters from the Azerbaijan´s gas field Shah Deniz.
The remaining 9.41 million cubic meters will be provided thanks to local production. In total, Azerbaijan will meet 99.65% of Georgia’s natural gas demand in 2018.
In 2017 Azerbaijan was Georgia’s main gas supplier with a share of 77.9% of the total volume of gas imports of the country.
The parliamentary opposition calls on the government to disclose the details of the recently made agreement with Gazprom Export, reached on January 10, 2017, as a result of which Georgia, a transit country for the transportation of Russian gas to Armenia, will from 2018 receive payment from Gazprom.
The opposition party United National Movement (UNM) says they have nothing against of Azerbaijani gas, but claim the recent deal with Gazprom brought serious loss to Georgia as previously it was receiving around 200 million m3 gas equal to 100 million Gel ($38.51 million).
This is not the 1st time the opposition asks for disclosure of the details of the deal with Gazprom but the government says agreement is a commercial secret, adding the conditions of the deal remained the same, and only the form of payment was changed.
