By Natalia Konarzewska

December 7th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

After meeting with Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller in Milan on September 25, Georgia’s Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze announced that the parties discussed increasing Russia’s transit of gas to Armenia and opened a possibility for Georgian commercial entities to buy additional volumes of Russian gas. In October, Kaladze reiterated that Tbilisi wants to diversify its natural gas routes and suppliers through imports from Russia and possibly Iran. No details about the eventual increase of gas shipments from Russia have so far been revealed. Yet the prospective agreement has already caused controversy among Georgian political opposition, which questions Gazprom’s reliability as a gas supplier, and raised concerns in Azerbaijan, which is Georgia’s largest gas provider.

By Mina Muradova

November 30th, the CACI Analyst

In recent weeks, a political controversy has emerged in Tbilisi over the Georgian government’s negotiations with Gazprom over a return of the Russian natural gas giant to the Georgian market. Georgian officials insist there is no intention to replace gas imports from Georgia’s main supplier Azerbaijan with Russian gas, but Georgia’s own experience of dependency on Gazprom makes the issue highly controversial.

By Stephen Blank

November 20th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

In early October Frontera Corporation announced that it had discovered 3.8 trillion cubic meters (TCM) of gas in Georgia’s Kakheti region. Although the discovery needs to be confirmed and the precise amount of gas determined; this discovery has major potential benefits of both an economic and geopolitical nature for Georgia, Azerbaijan and Europe. But there are lurking dangers as well, especially as the Georgian government recently voiced its intention to sign an agreement with Gazprom for Russian gas and diversify away from its exclusive reliance on Azerbaijan, despite that country’s utter reliability over several years and lack of designs upon Georgia.

By Eka Janashia

November 19th, the CACI Analyst

In mid-October, the prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda visited Georgia in an effort to open a probe into war crimes committed during the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008. “There are no substantial reasons to believe that the opening of an investigation would not serve the interests of justice,” she said.

On October 13, the prosecutor filed a 160-page “request,” involving the details of suspected crimes attributed to the Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian sides, before the ICC three-judge panel. The panel will make a decision on whether to launch an investigation in Georgia covering the period from July 1, 2008 to October 10 of the same year. 

By Eka Janashia

November 6, the CACI Analyst

On October 10, Georgia’s PM Irakli Garibashvili made an unplanned visit to Baku to meet with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The visit came after statements by Georgian officials on a possible restoration of gas supplies from Russia. Given Azerbaijan’s central role in Georgia’s gas sector, the move could damage the partnership between Tbilisi and Baku.