MAY 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned company United Airports of Georgia said it had opened a tender for the construction of a new airport in the town of Zugdidi, 300km west of Tbilisi. The new airport, which will be built in the same location as the existing one, will service both domestic and international flights.
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(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)
BATUMI/Georgia, MAY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian real estate developer Orbi Group said it has started construction work on a $120m hotel in Batumi called the Twin Tower, a sign that tourism and business on Georgia’s Black Sea coast is possibly rebounding.
The two 45-storey towers will hold 4,500 hotel rooms, making it the sixth largest hotel complex in the world when it is completed by the end of next year.
Batumi is Georgia’s main tourist destination and had been the site of mass redevelopment. The previous government of Mikheil Saakashvili had spent heavily improving Batumi but its fortunes had dived after the election of the Georgian Dream coalition government in 2012.
This lack of favour coupled with an economic downturn triggered by low oil prices stalled many of Batumi’s planned projects.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — During a trip to Azerbaijan, EBRD President, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, confirmed that the Bank is considering a €1.5b ($1.7b) loan to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of the Southern Gas Corridor network that will pump gas from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea fields to Europe (May 25). Sir Suma also said the Bank is considering co-financing the TANAP pipeline, which will run from Azerbaijan through Turkey to Greece, where it will joint TAP.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian authorities inaugurated construction work in Tbilisi at what will become the fifth-largest technological institute in the world. The Cartu Foundation, supported by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, will cover the costs, which will run to several million euros, according to the government. It is still unclear when the Georgia’s Technological Institute will be completed. Georgia is trying to position itself as a tech hub for the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Georgia sent a delegation to Greece for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of a network of pipelines that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, in a show of support for a project that the European Union considers vitally important.
Georgia’s PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili and Azerbaijan’s deputy PM Yagub Eyyubov attended the inauguration event with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, European Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and Special Envoy at the US State Department Amos Hochstein.
“Georgia, as a transit country, reiterates its commitments to the diversification of energy supplies to Europe and expresses supports for existing and future energy projects connected to the Southern Gas Corridor,” Mr Kvirikashvili said.
The so-called Southern Gas Corridor, a network of pipelines, is scheduled to be completed in 2019 and will send 16b cubic metres of gas to Europe every year.
TAP will ship 10b cubic metres from Greece’s border with Turkey across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. From there it will be pumped to central Europe.
Mr Kvirikashvili said the project “creates a new dimension for economic cooperation and for the security in the region.”
Azerbaijan is an integral part of the project. The Corridor’s pipelines will be filled with gas from its major fields, chiefly Shah Deniz.
Azerbaijan is also invested in the construction and management of the pipelines. SOCAR, the state energy company, owns 20% of TAP. BP (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (16%), Enagas (16%) and Axpo (5%) consti- tute the remaining shareholders.
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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)
MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Construction work on the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has begun. It will link the Azerbaijani and Turkish sections of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor to Greece and Italy.
The Southern Gas Corridor is the EU and the US’ pet project and will bring Azerbaijani gas to Europe.
This is the culmination of years of planning and fending off rival projects, Russian and European.
But the fundamentals of the energy sector have changed dramatically in the past couple of years. The oil price collapse means that profit margins have dropped through the floor, making it near impossible to invest in major infrastructure projects.
That is unless you’re working on the Southern Gas Corridor. The point is not that the Southern Gas Corridor is more profitable than other pipelines, it isn’t, but that politics is more important than economics on this project.
The drivers of the project want to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russia for gas.
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(Editorial from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)
MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s ministry of energy said construction of a 220kV transmission line between the Hradzan thermal power plant and the Shinuayr substation will be completed by the end of the year. The 230km-long transmission line will be an important link between power generating centres in Armenia. The World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would fund the project with a series of loans.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
APRIL 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The AIIB, a China-backed international financial institution, said it would fund road projects in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. According to unnamed sources quoted in the FT, the AIIB will join an EBRD-funded road project in Dushanbe and a World Bank and EBRD-backed ring road project in Almaty. The AIIB has said it is keen to fund infrastructure upgrades within its Silk Road project.
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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)
APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Australia-based WorleyParsons said it won a five-year Engineering, Procurement, Construction Management contract with BP for its operations in Azerbaijan and Georgia. The company will service the BP-operated Sangachal Terminal and pipelines in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. It didn’t say how much the contract was worth.
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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)
APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) will supply gas turbines and generators to the 400MW Zerger gas-fired power plant in Turkmenistan. Under a $300m contract signed last year, Japan’s Sumitomo is building the plant in the Lebap region of Turkmenistan, 600km north-east of Ashgabat.
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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)
