State Agency of Oil and Gas urges Frontera to make the International Arbitration’s decision public
By Khatia Bzhalava
Tuesday, July 28
State Agency of Oil and Gas shares a statement where they claim that Frontera, an international oil and gas exploration and production company makes ‘unfounded and libelous’ allegations. SAOG demands from Frontera to make the decision of International Arbitration public or otherwise the Agency reserves a right to share the decision itself.
According to SAOG’s statement, on April 17th, 2020, International Arbitration Court made the final decision on the arbitral dispute at Permanent Court of Arbitration on proceedings commenced by Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation and State Agency of Oil and Gas against Frontera Resources Georgia Corporation on January 15th, 2018, regarding Frontera’s failure to comply with the responsibilities imposed according to the contract. The court identified a significant violation of the contract by Frontera. Thus the Agency (SAOG) had all rights to abort the contract.
As the statement notes, on April 27th of 2020, the Agency notified Frontera on abortion of the contract, therefore, after July 27th, Frontera would have been deprived of the right to carry out oil and gas operations on the land determined by the contract. However, as the statement reads, on the basis of government’s goodwill, the process of abortion of contract has been suspended. The statement highlights that this decision of the government has been welcomed by Kelly Degnan, the Ambassador of the US to Georgia.
“Despite the government's goodwill, the company Frontera made an absolutely unfounded and libelous statement, which intended to facilitate the reality and conceal the facts,” reads the statement.
According to the statement, the Agency stays loyal to the decisions of International Arbitration Court and the government of Georgia and once again calls on Frontera to make the decision of arbitrage public.
“If despite numerous public statements made by Executive Management, the company does not make the arbitrator's decision public, we will regard the company’s above-mentioned statements as a consent, that is why the agency reserves a right to make the decision public.”
Lastly, the agency calls on Frontera to proceed mining in the mines discovered yet during Soviet Union, also to respect and execute the arbitrator's decision and defray all the financial duties.
On July 24th, Frontera Resources, an international oil and gas exploration and production company made a statement, where it was noted that the government of Georgia runs disinformation campaigns. The company accused the government of libel as well as deliberate pressure.
