Tbilisi conference focuses on energy security

Over 250 participants including officials and industry leaders from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and the United States attended the two-day conference.

Alexandre Khetaguri, the head of the Georgian International Oil and Gas Corporation, told Radio Free Europe's Georgian Service that presentations focused on projects like Nabucco (a proposed gas pipeline to transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria and Hungary) as well as the construction of a trans-Caspian pipeline, which will ensure transportation of gas from Central Asian countries to Europe.

Another project proposed was the Georgia-Ukraine-European Union Gas pipeline (GUEU) which would transport Azeri gas to the EU via Georgia and Ukraine.

"This is a very strategic project for the whole area, starting from Azerbaijan and Georgia," Roberto Pirani, the chairman and technical director of GUEU told Radio Free Europe adding, "from the European point of view, it's a diversification of supply into Eastern Europe. We're talking about Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, who are totally dependent on supplies from Gazprom. So this project will provide an alternative."

US Ambassador John Tefft remarked on the need to diversify oil and gas supplies, especially from Central Asian sources. "We are strongly in favour of competition, not confrontation" he said. "The most important thing now is not how to further divide the pie of natural resources available in this region, but how to make the whole pie bigger to benefit the whole region's residents and world markets," Ambassador Tefft commented.

"Turkmenistan can play a big role if it chooses to do so," informing that senior US diplomat in charge of Caspian energy issues Steven Mann visited Turkmenistan this month.

"We want to see Turkmenistan develop its energy reserves in a fashion that gives them market price for their energy; that gives them different options for export," Ambassador Tefft said.

Meanwhile, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli was on a working visit to Turkmenistan including talks with Turkmenistan's president in an effort to persuade Turkmen officials to export its natural gas to Europe via the South Caucasus instead of Russia as it does now.

"Georgia will do its utmost so that Turkmenistan can find a short and cheap path to Europe," Noghaideli said as quoted in Kavkaz Press on March 23. As for Georgia's debt to Turkmenistan, Noghaideli said that the remaining USD 40 million of the original USD 400 million debt would be paid off in 2007.

Georgian Speaker of Parliament Nino Burjanadze on an official visit to the US, warned the EU not to let Russia interfere in projects that diversify gas supplies to Europe via the Caucasus and Turkey bypassing Russia.

Speaking at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on March 20, Nino Burjanadze said that Moscow's "desperate attempts" to regain control over Georgia are largely triggered by a desire to take over alternative routes for transportation of Central Asian energy resources to the western markets.

"At this stage Russia's main goal is securing its energy monopoly by stopping EU's high priority Nabucco project for [transporting] Caspian gas, which will provide much needed relief from an overdependence on Russian gas," Burjanadze said, continuing, "If Europe allows Russia to stop the Nabucco project - this truly important energy project aiming at transportation of Kazakh and Turkmen natural gas through Turkey to Europe - Europe itself will contribute greatly to the inevitable dominance of Gazprom," Civil Georgia quotes Burjanadze as saying. The Messenger