Russia, Iran and Armenia not participating in Batumi summit

The Batumi energy summit will be held on January 14. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary have confirmed their participation. Russia, Iran and Armenia will not participate.

Georgia’s Energy Minister Alexander Khetaguri stated that a declaration will be adopted at the summit concerning the South Stream project. This envisages laying a 900 kilometre natural gas pipeline on the Black Sea bed running to the Bulgarian port of Varna. This will pump 30 billion cubic metres of gas annually and will begin functioning in 2013. It will cost about Euro 10 billion.

The first summit on energy security issues in the Caspian, Black Sea and Baltic countries was held in Krakow, Poland in 2007.