AZERI PRESIDENT INVITED HIS GEORGIAN COUNTERPART TO VISIT BAKU TO SIGN AGREEMENT ON GAS EXPORT

The Azeri President Geydar Aliyev has invited his Georgian counterpart Edward Shewardnadze to Baku to sign intergovernmental agreement on export of natural gas from the Caspian Shah Deniz field.

CNА was informed in the presidential press office that the official invitation was handed to the Georgian President by the president of the Georgian International Oil Corporation Georgiy Chanturia, who has arrived in Baku last week. During the meeting the sides expressed readiness to sign a package of Azeri-Georgian documents on transit, export and gas sale. Last week the governmental delegations of the both states met in Switzerland and have completed the last round of negotiations on the same range of issues.

According to the President Aliyev, laying of a strategic for Azerbaijan and most of multinational corporations gas pipeline passing via Georgia to Turkey is important for Georgia as well. It is expected that yet in 2003 Georgia will purchase from Azerbaijan about 1.5 - 2 billion cubic meters of gas from Shah Deniz field. According to the Western experts the reserves of this field are close to 1 trillion cubic meters. At the same time the average annual supply of gas to Turkey has to stand at 5 billion cubic meters. These showings are fixed in the Azeri-Turkish intergovernmental agreement on gas supply signed on March 21, 2001, in Ankara.