Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec 8 /Trend E.Ismayilov/
Construction work on the creation of the largest port on the Black Sea coast of Georgia at Supsa can begin next summer, director of Black Sea Product Ltd (BSP), Shalva Tsakadze told Trend on Thursday.
Mr Tsakadze said that excavation work has been conducted on the future port site, but it is difficult to say when construction will start.
"It is possible that construction will be launched in the middle of 2012," he said.
Mr Tsakadze noted that, initially $700 million will be invested in the construction and the whole process of building the port capacity of 40 million tons of cargo per year is planned to be completed in 2014 although the first ships being accepted by the end of 2012.
The new port will be designed for the transhipment of both oil products and liquefied gas. The port will tranship containers and dry cargo. Less than half the capacity will be designed for bulk cargo, while the remainder will fall on the container and dry cargo areas.
The port will be located in the heart of the transport corridor of the TRACECA (Europe-Caucasus-Asia). It will be located closer to railway than other Georgian ports. The main advantage of the new port at Supsa is the deep water (18 metres) enabling any vessel to enter that is sailing through the Bosphorus.
Azeri oil is transported via the Baku-Supsa pipeline in the direction of Supsa from the block of offshore oil and gas, the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Here oil is loaded on to tankers and sold on the world markets.