Tbilisi, January 3 (Interfax) – Georgia can involve Russia and Western countries in establishing a major energy complex in the Black Sea port of Supsa, former president of the Georgian International Oil Corporation (GIOC) Giorgi Chanturia believes.
“The project implies the construction of an oil refinery in Supsa where a pipeline was stretched from Baku back in the 1990s and also a high-capacity petrochemical complex,” Chanturia, one of the persons behind the project, said in a Saturday interview with a Georgian news portal.
He said that the project worth $17 billion was planned 15 years ago with U.S. assistance but was not implemented for a number of reasons.
“The time has come when Georgia can initiate the revival of the project, especially as it is actually planned,” he said.
The former GIOC president directly involved in the construction of the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline and also the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan export main is sure that the implementation of the project would make Georgia an energy hub in the Black Sea – Caspian area.
“It is absolutely realistic and mutually advantageous to include the Russian energy potential in the project. On the other hand, we will fully meet the requirements of European energy authorities spanning out until the year 2020,” Chanturia said.
“Cooperation is better than the contradictions that killed Nabucco project in this sphere,” he said.
“Not only the EU will be our partner but also Russia that will get a chance of diversifying the exports of its fuel resources to Europe and Asia,” he said.
He said that there is a project of building a pipeline from Novorossiysk to Supsa via Abkhazia that would be linked to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil corridor.
“We will be able to pump Russian, Azerbaijani and Kazakhstani oil in big quantities and also the oil extracted in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan by U.S. and European companies,” Chanturia said.
He said that according to the calculations made by Inter Energy Group which he set up with U.S. partners, the project in Supsa can be launched in September and the first capacities may appear in two years.
“Naturally, the political will of the incumbent authorities in Georgia is the key and decisive condition. I am sure that the country will not lose this chance,” Chanturia said.
