Russian media claims Gazprom has opened plant in Tskhinvali

Russia’s media is speculating that very soon Russia’s energy giant Gazprom will open a plant in Georgia’s eastern occupied territory of Tskhinvali (South Ossetia), which is currently controlled by Russia following the Russia-Georgia war in 2008.

“The company [Gazprom] will take care of the gasification of South Ossetia,” Spitnik Ossetia reported.

The news agency continued on to claim that Gazprom representatives have already arrived in Tskhinvali and met with de-facto President Leonid Tibilov.

"Many options were discussed, but in the end we agreed on a decision which has been approved by Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.

“Gazprom is responsible for the operation of all plants in and the supply of these territories. Gazprom is responsible for all gas-related financial, economic and legal activities,” said Gazprom representative Valery Golubev.

Earlier this year, Georgia discussed an opportunity to fill the exiting gas deficit for the country with Gazprom gas supplies. However, the discussions caused large-scale protests and a backlash amongst the opposition, civil sector and the general public.

The protesters stressed that Georgia must never become dependent on Russian energy.

In the end, the Government declared that Georgia had reached an agreement with Azerbaijan over additional gas supplies.

Georgia’s natural gas supply deficit challenge is now solved until 2030, as over the next 14 years Georgia will receive an additional 500 million cubic metre (m3) of natural gas from Azerbaijani’s national oil company SOCAR, raising the amount it receives from 800 million to 1.3 billion m3 per year.

To date, Georgia has received 200 million m3 of natural gas per year from Russia in return for gas transit to Armenia, said Georgia’s Energy Ministry.

As Gazprom represents the Government of Russia, Moscow uses it to exert political influence through its control of gas supplies.

Both the country and the company ignore fundamental principles with regards to Georgia, which once again means that Georgia should refrain from any long-standing and serious deals with Russian companies which might somehow make Georgia dependent on Moscow.