Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

SOCAR Georgia Gas company (the Georgian subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR), as part of the gas distribution project’s implementation in Georgia, acquired the Telavgas LLC engaged in gas distribution in Georgia’s Telavi district in late 2018, SOCAR told Trend.

The new acquisition is continuation of the measures being implemented by SOCAR Georgia Gas over the past years as part of a large-scale project for managing a gas distribution network in Georgia, SOCAR said.

"From the point of view of corporate strategy, these assets are components of a single gas distribution project in the country," SOCAR noted. "Addition of assets in the Telavi district expanded the scale of gas distribution operations throughout the entire Kakheti region and most of Georgia, with the exception of Tbilisi."

Presently, SOCAR is the major supplier of natural gas, oil and oil products to Georgia. SOCAR’s subsidiaries are engaged in expansion and modernization of the country’s gas distribution systems, development of filling stations under SOCAR’s brand and have an oil terminal in Georgia’s Kulevi Black Sea Port, which supplies Azerbaijani oil and oil products to the world markets.

SOCAR exports gas being extracted at Azerbaijani fields through its own funds to Georgia without participation of foreign companies. Moreover, Georgia receives Azerbaijani gas extracted at the Shah Deniz offshore field with participation of SOCAR and foreign companies.

SOCAR started its business activity in Georgia in 2006. In the same year, company purchased Kulevi oil terminal which has been put into operation since 2008, aimed at transportation of oil and oil products from Azerbaijan and Central Asia to western markets. Before the operation, the investment costs amounted to $ 233 million. However, $ 96 million ($ 10 million in 2017) was invested in the terminal between 2008 and 2017. During the reporting period, the volume of transported goods via the terminal was 23 million m / t .

SOCAR is implementing its operations in Georgia through SOCAR Georgia Petroleum, SOCAR Gas Export-Import, SOCAR Georgia Gas, SOCAR Georgia Gas Distribution, Black Sea Terminal and others. At present, there are about 4,000 employees in the subordinated companies operating in SOCAR.

SOCAR Georgia Gas was established in 2007 to provide the import and sale of natural gas to the Georgian market, as well as the construction and rehabilitation of gas pipelines. Currently, 19 functional services are active within SOCAR Georgia Gas. In addition, the Company has founded 6 distribution enterprises in a number of regions of Georgia.

During the entire period of SOCAR Georgia Gas, total investments amounted to $ 77 million (construction of gas pipelines, rehabilitation and design works). Additionally, investments worth $ 30 million are envisaged based on a 3-year program.

SOCAR Georgia Gas supplied 250,000 customers with gas and invested around $ 290 million in gas in 2008-2017. In addition, the company imported 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the Georgian market during this period.

SOCAR's investment in Georgia amounted to $ 52.1 million in 2017. All companies included in SOCAR Energy Georgia have paid $ 116 million tax in Georgia in 2017.

Overall, SOCAR and its subsidiaries invested more than $ 1 billion in Georgia's economy, and paid $ 1.252 billion in tax (all types of tax deductions) to the Georgian state budget in 2007-2017.

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