Azernews.Az

Participants of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania-Hungary Interconnector (AGRI) gas export project will hold talks in Brussels in early 2012 to include it in a number of priority projects of the Southern Gas Corridor, the Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation told Azerbaijani news agency Trend Monday.

AGRI's joining the Southern Gas Corridor is expected to be supported by the EU and to accelerate its implementation.

The AGRI project envisions transporting Azerbaijani gas by a pipeline to the Black Sea coast of Georgia where it will be liquefied at an LNG terminal. Further, the LNG will be transported by tankers to the Romanian port of Constanta and then, in the form of natural gas, will be supplied to customers in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and other countries of southeastern Europe.

Three capacity options of the AGRI project are being considered - 2 billion cubic meters of gas per year, 5 billion cubic meters and 8 billion cubic meters.

"The main working versions of the project include gas supplies to Georgia's Black Sea coast via the existing system of main gas pipelines of Azerbaijan and Georgia," the corporation said.

The parties established in February a joint venture, SC AGRI LNG Project Company SRL, to implement the project.

The company on December 5 announced a tender to prepare the feasibility study of the AGRI project, in order to determine its technical, financial and economic viability.

The AGRI project cost may vary from 1.2 billion to 4.5 billion euros.

The Southern Corridor is a priority EU energy project diversifying supply routes and sources and increasing EU energy security. It includes the Nabucco, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) pipelines, which envisage gas supplies from the resource-rich Caspian region to the EU.