Georgia will buy gas mostly from Azerbaijan from 2007 in spite of some technical problems at Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli said in the capital city of Tbilisi on Friday.

"Technical problems of a well delayed by several weeks the deliveries through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline, which were planned for December 22," Nogaideli was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

In this respect Georgia will have to buy Russian gas at 235 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic meters in the first weeks of 2007.

"However, Azerbaijani gas is Georgia's strategic choice," Nogaideli said. "As soon as the technical problems are resolved, we will start receiving gas mostly from Azerbaijan."

"Russian gas purchases at a price suggested by Gazprom is a reluctant but temporary measure," he added.

Gazprom planned to raise the gas price from 110 dollars per 1, 000 cubic meters to 235 dollars from 2007. The company has signed three contracts on the delivery of 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Georgia in 2007 at the new price, Gazprom deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said.

He said gas payments will be monetary as Georgia is not prepared to pay with assets so far.

The contracts were signed with three leading gas consumers in Georgia: the Klari Energy Corporation that generates electricity, the Kastrasgaz Tbilisi Company that supplies gas to the capital city, and the Georgian International Energy Corporation that makes cement.

Source: Xinhua