The FINANCIAL — “Notwithstanding the current tough situation in Georgia, Wissol filling stations continue work as usual all over the country,” Vasil Khorava, Wissol Petroleum Georgia’s General Director, told The FINANCIAL.
“As for the price changes, the recent developments in the international market have improved our abilities to import and Wissol will do its best to make retail prices in Georgia adequate to the international market price reduction tendencies. As for now, we’ve dropped prices by 5 tetries.”
“Since August 15 prices of all types of fuel have been reduced by 5 tetries. We are keeping on working in the usual way not to cause discomfort to our clients,” said Levan Gogichadze, Marketing Manager of Lukoil Georgia.
Both companies claim no fuel deficit is being faced in the country.
In Khorava’s words, Wissol has dropped prices for all the six types of fuel sold by the company. A few days ago Wissol was planning fuel import from the Black Sea side, though due to the strained situation in Poti, the tanker was not able to enter the port. Wissol still managed to show its solidarity to the population and dropped prices by 5 tetries both on the high quality Italian fuel supply and the products of the economic packet.
As Gogichadze stated, due to obvious reasons import difficulties are obvious, though they’re waiting for good news in this respect any minute now.
Both companies say with confidence that they can meet the local demand at this point.
“Wissol is motivated to work hard so as not to have oil deficits in Georgia. The terminal supplies that Wissol has both in west and east Georgia will totally meet the consumer demand,” said Khorava. “Wissol provides oil import from the sea as well as from East Georgia and the process is stable at this point, though if there’s need we will intensify work in this direction,” said Khorava.
“The current developments in the country have badly affected all kinds of businesses and it’s not depended on the inadequate growth or reduced demand on any particular product. Personnel safety is another issue of concern as we have 58 filling stations in Georgia,” claimed Gogichadze. “Fuel storage in Georgia is quite sufficient and except the supply difficulties in particular regions people shouldn’t face any problems.”
According to abc.az, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has come forward with a special statement about the activities of its enterprises in Georgia.
The company has reported that all these enterprises in Georgia are operating normally.
“We have shipped our next tanker with oil products from the Kulevi-based terminal belonging to SOCAR,” the company reported.
Nevertheless, SOCAR has decided to carry out an evacuation of the family members of its personnel in Georgia-based enterprises.
The upgraded Kulevi terminal (located on the Black Sea coastline of Georgia) belonging to SOCAR’s daughter enterprise Socar Energy Georgia LLC opened officially on May 16.
From the moment of its official opening the terminal had already accumulated 10,000 tonnes of black oil. The terminal is able to receive and serve tankers with deadweight of up to 60,000 tonnes.
The announced capacity of the Kulevi terminal is 10 million tonnes of oil and petroleum products, but in the first year of its operation its loading can take only around 50% of its total capacity.
SOCAR raised two loans (USD 265 million and USD 40 million) from the 15 bank member consortium organized by Societe Generale and ABN Amro for the terminal project. The credits will be given under the annual rate of Libor+0.85% for a five-year period and will be repaid due to profit oil sales.
SOCAR expects to have repaid this loan by 2009 taking into account high oil prices and the growth of oil production.
Azerbaijan does not intend to re-consider its plans in respect to Georgia because of the current hostilities on its territory.
At the briefing in Baku Khazar Ibrahim, press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, claimed that Azerbaijan is appealing to the involved parties to cease escalation of the conflict in Georgia.
“The Azerbaijani party believes that the conflict should be settled on the basis of the territorial integrity of Georgia. We consider that in this case what is needed is not talks on what both parties have done in the conflict, but on how to stop escalation of the conflict,” Ibrahim said.
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