Georgia Sees Gas Demand Rising
Georgia’s gas demand will go up by 46% to 3.5bn m³/yr by 2030 and might come entirely from Azerbaijan, the head of strategic planning and projects department at Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) Temur Gochitashvili said.
Nearly all would come as higher payment for transit: after 2022, Azerbaijan starts up 16bn m³/yr gas supply to Turkey and EU from Shah Deniz 2 (SD 2)and Georgia would receive 5% of that, or 800mn m³, as transit fee. Together with existing output from SD1, Georgia would receive 1.125bn m³ in total payments.
Georgia will use an estimated 2.447bn m³ this year, of which 2.437bn m³ (99.6%) will be Azeri gas. Azerbaijan’s state-run Socar reported September 3 that it will increase gas exports to Georgia by 29% to 1.8bn m3 in 2018 compared with last year. Georgia has stopped importing gas from Gazprom, which is paying Georgia cash to transit gas to Armenia. Azerbaijan’s state-run Socar carries out more than half the retail gas sales in Georgia as well.
“The alternative import sources are Turkmenistan and Iran. Since Iran is under US sanctions, Turkmenistan gas seems much more realistic,” Gochitashvili said.
After the convention on the status of the Caspian Sea was signed on August 12 of this year, the prospect of implementing the Trans-Caspian pipeline project has become possible. But strict environmental standards still need to be met, giving littoral states the opportunity to block any deal involving pipelines along the seabed. Russia and Iran could therefore stop Turkmenistan from exporting gas to Europe that way.