Energy

Location: Southwestern Asia, between Turkey and Russia, bordering the Black Sea

 

Geographic coordinates: 42 00 N, 43 30 E

 

Area: total: 69,700 sq km, land: 69,700 sq km, water: 0 sq km

 

Land boundaries: total: 1,461 km, border countries: Armenia 164 km, Azerbaijan 322 km, Russia 723 km, Turkey 252 km

 

Climate: warm and pleasant; Mediterranean-like on Black Sea coast

 

Natural resources: forests, hydropower, manganese deposits, iron ore, copper, minor coal and oil deposits; coastal climate and soils allow for important tea and citrus growth

 

Natural hazards: earthquakes

 

Environment - current issues: air pollution, particularly in Rust'avi; heavy pollution of Mtkvari River and the Black Sea; inadequate supplies of potable water; soil pollution from toxic chemicals

 

Environment - international agreements: party to: Air Pollution, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

 

Population: 4,661,473 (July 2006 est.)

 

GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 16%, industry: 26.8%, services: 57.2% (2005 est.)

 

Electricity - consumption: 9.8 billion kWh (2005)

 

Merchant marine: total: 192 ships (1000 GRT or over) 936,396 GRT/1,373,814 DWT
by type: barge carrier 1, bulk carrier 23, cargo 150, container 4, liquefied gas 1, passenger 1, passenger/cargo 3, petroleum tanker 4, refrigerated cargo 3, roll on/roll off 1, specialized tanker 1
foreign-owned: 157 (Albania 1, Azerbaijan 2, Belgium 1, Cyprus 1, Ecuador 1, Egypt 6, Estonia 1, Germany 1, Greece 5, Indonesia 1, South Korea 1, Lebanon 5, Monaco 12, Romania 8, Russia 20, Slovenia 1, Syria 37, Turkey 24, Ukraine 23, UAE 1, UK 5) (2005)

Ports and terminals: ‘Batumi’, ‘Poti’

 

Georgia lies at a strategic location between energy sources near the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean, and thus will play an increasingly important role in the transport of in demand Caspian energy sources. In addition, Georgia has potential for its own oil production, as the country’s first oil field, Samgori, was discovered in 1974, and numerous foreign companies are currently undertaking exploration and researching production potential.

 

Georgia’s Energy sector can be divided into:

Georgia's electricity infrastructure consists of large, medium and small scale hydro-power, thermal power generation stations and transmission lines. Georgia's electricity grid is connected with that of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

 

The construction of two new pipelines transporting oil and natural gas across Georgia has increased its role as a strategic crossroad for hydrocarbon transit in the Caspian region. The country's gas pipeline system is connected via a trunk pipeline with Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

 

Oil and Gas Pipelines: Georgia plays an important role as a strategic crossroad for hydrocarbon transit in the Caspian region. During the last ten years, $5 billion was invested by British Petroleum (BP) and its partners to develop the three major oil and gas pipelines that cross Georgia:

The Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, completed in 2005 at a total construction cost of nearly $4 billion, can transport up to a million barrels of oil a day from the Sangachal terminal in Azerbaijan to a newly constructed marine terminal in Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. One of the longest pipelines in the world, it generated transit revenue to the Georgian Government total of $25.4 million in 2007. Estimated transit payments for 2008 will be around $45 million, rising to $50 million a year in the close future.

The South Caucasus gas Pipeline (SCP), completed in 2006, will carry natural gas from the Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea to customers in Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan. The gas supplied through SCP represents a source of future energy security and supply diversity for Georgia. SCP brings benefits of gas ‘in kind' in lieu of tariff. Under current sales agreements, Georgia's volumes will build up to 800 million cubic meters of gas at peak production.

The Western Route Export Pipeline (WREP), also known as the Baku-Supsa pipeline, has brought total of 65 million dollars transit fee revenues to the government of Georgia since it was completed in 1998 .

 

The Impact of Government Policy: The energy sector is liberally regulated. The Government deregulated the electricity market in order to facilitate the inflow of foreign investments. Hydro-power stations and the United Energy Distribution System were privatized. The Government of Georgia is rehabilitating existing power generation facilities, including hydro and thermal stations and transmission lines.

 

 

As a result of private and public investments and deregulation measures, energy has become one of the most dynamically developing sectors of Georgian economy.

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