Specialists think that Georgia's oil and gas resources are abundant, and they may prove highly profitable for the country. Oil exploration efforts are underway in Georgia, and Australian OMV Petrom SA is now one of the companies carrying out these efforts in the country.
In 1993-94, surveys conducted on the Black Sea shelf showed that oil and gas were present there. Professor at Georgia's Technical University Shalva Mestvirishvili was involved in the surveys carried out back then, and he confirmed that oil and gas were discovered on the Black Sea shelf, but their amount was left undetermined.
In Mestvirishvili's words, OMV Petrom's revenue is a hundred the amount of Georgia's budget, and it will not bother itself for one-year resources; according to him, at least ten-year resources must be available for it to show interest in the region.
Energy expert Temur Gochitashvili has also focused on the possibility of the existence of abundant oil and gas resources on the Black Sea shelf, saying that the country might get high profits.
As for other fields, the expert says that a total of 16 fields, with 27 mln extracted oil and three bln m3 gas, have been discovered in Georgia as early as under the Soviet Union. The expert says that the capacity of these oil and gas fields are five mln tons of oil and 4-5 bln m3 gas.
A total of the other five fields have also been discovered countrywide; however, their commercial values remain undetermined.
