Azerbaijan, Georgia and Romania have signed an agreement on establishing a joint venture within the gas transport project AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector), it was announced in a message from the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR).
The agreement was signed between SOCAR, the Georgian Oil and Gas
Corporation and Romania's Romqaz.
The joint venture will operate from Bucharest. Each member will have a
33% share. The organization will work on a technical-economic basis
and will search for investments.
The Azerbaijani Minister of Industry and Energy, Natik Aliyev, had
said earlier that the company had three versions of operating – on 2
billion cubic m annually, 5 billion cubic m or 8 billion cubic m.
The costs of the project ranged from 1.2 billion to 4.5 billion euros.
AGRI is a project for transporting liquefied gas to Europe.
On May 12th, Azerbaijan, Romania and Georgia signed a protocol in
Tbilisi to establish the joint venture. It will carry out all the
actions needed for organising the tender to choose the contractor
company and invite investment.
On April 13th they signed a memorandum on cooperation in the liquefied
gas sector and transport.
The project of transporting Azerbaijani gas to Romania involves
construction of 2 terminals for liquefied gas in Romania and Georgia.
The project will cost from 4 to 6 billion euros.
Azerbaijani gas will be transported along the Black Sea coast of
Georgia, where it will be liquefied and transported to the Romanian
port of Constanta via tankers. Then it will be converted into natural
gas and will be used to fulfil the demand for gas in Romania and other
countries.er countries.
