On his visit to Baku, Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigol
Vashadze will not discuss the purchase of the Georgian section of the
North-South gas pipeline by SOCAR (State Oil Company of the
Azerbaijani Republic) on January 18-19, the minister's deputy, Nino
Kalandadze, said, Trend reports.
The gas pipeline is controlled by the state-owned Georgian Oil and Gas
Corporation (GOGC). The Gas Transporting Company, a subdivision of the
GOGC, operates the gas supplies.
SOCAR officials had expressed interest in purchasing the gas pipeline,
as a facility for privatization, earlier.
SOCAR plans to use the pipeline within the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romanian
Interconnector (AGRI) project for gas transport.
AGRI has 3 versions of capacity: two billion cubic meters of gas
annually, 5 billion cubic meters and 8 billion cubic meters. Depending
on the capacity, the project's expenses vary from 1.2 billion to 4.5
billion euro.
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary signed a declaration on AGRI
project in Baku on September 14.
The project involves transport of Azerbaijani gas to the Black Sea
coast where it will be liquefied at a special terminal. Then it will
be transported to Constanta Port in Romania via tankers, where it will
be converted into natural gas and used in the gas infrastructure to
fulfill Romanian and European demands for gas.
