Company Authorized to Supply Gas to Tskhinvali

Itera-Georgia, one of five gas distributor companies in Georgia, has received a permission from the Georgian government to supply gas to breakaway South Ossetia.

The Georgian Energy Ministry said on January 22 that it had issued permission “upon the request from European Union and OSCE.”

“Itera-Georgia is now holding negotiations with [Russia’s] Gazprom on import of gas volumes, which is required for the region,” the ministry said in the statement.

A special governmental permission is needed for conducting commercial activities in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the line with the law on the occupied territories, passed by the Georgian Parliament in October, 2008.

Gas supply to breakaway South Ossetia was disrupted on August 8 after the damage of the Agara-Tskhinvali pipeline following the launch of military hostilities in the region.  The pipeline was damaged on the Georgian side of the South Ossetian administrative border, close to the village of Dirbi.

The Georgian state-owned Gas Transportation Corporation started pipeline repair works on January 15 and the pipe was already fixed by January 16.

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