Iran to help with Georgia’s energy crisis
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Friday he would put an end to the domestic energy crisis by Monday with the help of gas supplies from Iran.After gas pipelines running from Russia to Georgia and electricity transmission lines in the country were damaged Sunday, Georgia was left without heating and electricity amidst record low temperatures. Russia has been repairing the pipelines, but the severe weather conditions are complicating the effort.
Saakashvili said several days of intense talks with the Iranian government had resulted in a contract on Iranian natural gas supplies to Georgia.
“Energy Minister Nina Gilauri has been conducting shuttle diplomacy and visited Tehran several times,” Saakashvili told the government. “We have agreed under the contract that we will begin receiving gas from Iran starting on Monday.”
David Ingorokva, the president of the Georgian International Oil Corporation, said the government had agreed with Iran to buy 2 million cubic meters of gas per day at a price of $120 per 1,000 cu m. Prior to Sunday’s accident, Russia’s price was $110.
Saakashvili said Iran’s price offer was acceptable and added that Russia should know that Georgia has an alternative gas supplier.
First off, the situation in Georgia is pretty grim, and anything the Government there can do to mitigate the immediate crisis needs to be done.
From a geo-political perspective though, this is a tremendous boon to Iran. There are a lot of nations in the area who are going to take note of this, and they will certainly look into cultivating a positive relationship with Iran as an alternative to friendship with Russia (or the United States for that matter). This development will certainly make dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions via international forums more difficult.
