Inguri hydropower plant: reason for confrontation or topic for Georgian-Abkhazian dialogue?

By Giorgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

At a recent press-conference, the president of Abkhazia, Raul Hadzhimba, said that the Inguri hydro-power plant is on the territory of Abkhazia and should belong to the Abkhaz state.

In the mid-1990s, after the end of the bloody war, Tbilisi and Sukhumi agreed that Abkhazia will get 40% of energy produced by the Inguri plant. Hadzhimba doubts that this is how it happens: “Sadly, the documents state that in the last years not enough has been done for this facility to become the property of our state. We need to elaborate measures to create the documents resolving the property issues around this facility.”

This statement produced a strong reaction in Tbilisi. The Georgian Energy Ministery, former defender for Milan FC Kakhi Kaladze, said that the statement by the head of Abkhazia is “unclear because it contradicts the agreements reached.” “Abkhazia receives 40% of its energy from the plant and it will continue to do so,” the minister maintained.

It is almost impossible to believe there would be Georgian energy without the Inguri plant. If this plant was turned off, the country would go into darkness. In Soviet times the energy systems were built in tandem, they are dependent on each other, and the loss of a link would cause a collapse.

It would not be easy for Georgia to find a replacement for the Inguri plant, that produces about 900 MgWt of the necessary 2000 MgWT.

In the last 20 years Georgia has kept its influence over the Inguri plant due to two factors. First, although the plant is located on the territory of Abkhazia and controlled by the Abkhaz authorities, the huge water dam on the Inguri river (the biggest dam in the Caucasus) is located in Georgia. Theoretically, Tbilisi can redirect the river to its former riverbed, and the power plant will have to stop without the river. This is a catastrophic scenario.

As the former Energy Minister Nika Gilauri said, “we can close the gates but the consequences will be severe, because it will be impossible to turn Inguri back to a power plant." In this case Georgia would lose half of its energy, while Abkhazia would be left without electricity at al,l because there are no power lines to bring electricity from Russia.

Secondly, small Abkhazia does not have the hundreds of specialists needed for the functioning of this huge power plant. That is why in 1994 the Abkhazian authorities allowed Georgian specialists access, giving them border passes that allowed them to cross the Georgian-Abkhazian border and even travel around Abkhazia in their own cars.

Of course, Abkhazia could have invited Russian specialists to the Inguri plant, but Sukhumi calculated differently – the presence of Russian energy specialists would have meant a growth of Russian influence. In a situation where Moscow recognized the territorial integrity of Georgia and interacted with the administration of President Shevarnadze in many spheres, Moscow and Tbilisi could have reached some agreements on the Inguri plant, bypassing Abkhazian interests. It would have been much more difficult to put pressure on Russian specialists than representatives of the “aggressor” Georgia.

The events of 2009 confirmed this hypothesis. Soon after the “five-day war", Russia and Georgia signed a protocol about giving the Inguri plant to the management of the RAO UES of Russia, but the agreement was not implementated because of the strong position of Sukhumi.

Now the situation is different. Russia has recognized the independence of Abkhazia and concluded several intergovernmental agreements, while the Abkhaz leadership would like to receive more energy from the Inguri plant with the help of Russia and Russian specialists. Not because Abkhazia needs more than that 40%, but because it would want to sell the precious energy to quickly-developing Sochi and other regions of Russia.

But the fact is that the dam clearly is on Georgian territory, and neither Abkhazia nor Russia are willing to question this. In this situation, all the interested sides will have to negotiate and discuss the “fair division of energy” and possibly even joint projects of the hydropower plants on the Inguri river that can provide electricity not only for the Western part of the South Caucasus, but for Russian regions too.