Georgia is currently in talks with Azerbaijan on the purchase of additional volumes of natural gas from the Shah-Deniz field, operated by BP.
The Georgian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Zurab Gumberidze, told Trend that the talks could be successful if the partners on Shah-Deniz project have vacant gas volumes to sell to Georgia.
“For us any volume of gas assumes significance. Probably, we will purchase from Azerbaijan 0.5 billion cu m of additional gas a year, or more,” he noted.
Earlier, Natik Aliyev, the President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), told Trend that Georgia was interested in the purchase of 200 million cu m Azerbaijani gas in 2005 and 700 million cu m вЂ" next year. However, it is necessary to have transport opportunities in this respect. The gas volumes to be sold under Stage 1 of Shah-Deniz project have been distributed. So, Georgia can receive gas under Stage 2 project.
There are technical problems under export of big gas volumes to Georgia. For instance, Georgia should construct gas pipeline for supply of 3 billion cu m of gas. In current situation the country can admit only 500 million cu m of gas a year.