SOCAR to deliver gas to Georgia

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Tbilisi signed a five-year contract with Baku to receive 80 percent its natural gas supplies from the State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic, officials said.

SOCAR delivers some 53 million cubic feet of natural gas to Georgia each day, with about 65 percent coming from the offshore Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he views the deal as a way to provide stable and secure prices for gas for his country, the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Washington, D.C., said on its Web site.

Energy security was destabilized in August during a conflict between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. Georgia hosts the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the second-longest in the world.

Russia has moved aggressively into the European energy sector as European Union states struggle to find alternatives to Russian natural resources.