Azerbaijan can hardly continue gas supplies to Georgia-opinion

He said this to reporters on Tuesday commenting on the Georgian side's proposal that Azerbaijan continue supplying gas to it till the end of 2007.

Aliyev said Azerbaijan had fulfilled in December last the intergovernmental agreement on gas supply to Georgia, the agreement's main aim being to help Georgia overcome the energy crisis in the winter period. Under the agreement Azerbaijan was to supply Georgia with 90 million cubic metres of gas at the price of 120 dollars per thousand cubic metres from its reserves. Later the volumes of supply were brought to 105 million cubic metres, and by now Georgia received under contract 97 million cubic metres of Azerbaijani gas. Besides, from March 19 Georgia also began receiving gas from the Shakh Deniz deposit on the Caspian shelf in the amount of one million cubic metres a day.

"Azerbaijan should take its own interests into consideration," Aliyev said, for, if it continues gas deliveries to Georgia in the present amount, "it will come up against big problems with the onset of winter." At the same time the Azerbaijani minister of industry and energy said, "Azerbaijan is ready to extend the helping hand to its strategic partner at crisis moments."

Meanwhile the Georgian-Azerbaijani talks to extend the contract on the supply to Georgia of gas the State Petroleum Company extracts opened in Baku on Tuesday. They will continue on Wednesday. Georgian Minister of Energy Pika Gilauri participates in the talks. Experts think there is a possibility that the final decision of the Azerbaijani side on the matter will be made public on Wednesday. Itar-Tass