According to the regulation by the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission, Natural gas or gas- is a type of hydrocarbons in a gaseous condition. Discussions about the caloric value of natural gas became frequent recently in Georgia. Some people are hesitating weather the caloric value of gas is about the standard or not. They claim that instead of the Natural gas, they are given an associated gas, which has less calorific value than the ordinary natural gas.
Lela kuprashvili is living in Tbilisi. She is one of the citizens, who protest against the quality and price of natural gas.
“I pay 0.51 GEL for each MG gas and this is not a little money. For this price gas must have more caloricity then it has now. It makes much more time to boil one liter water now then in the previous years. I see this problem especially in winter, when the gas worming equipment doesn’t produce heat enough, even when it is set on the high level. Simultaneously, gas counter counts a lot and the gas bills in winter are huge.” Kuprashvili says. As she asserts, there is a general view among the people, that the gas is either polluted with some unknown substances, or it is a low quality associated gas.
According to the Professor Tinatin Sakarashvili, There is difference between Natural and the associated gas. Associated is a gas which is extracted with oil and it may contain different not burning gases: nitrogen, carbon dioxide. Different is natural gas, which people use at home for heat and for cooking. It is liquid propane and butane. This gas is compressed but it has the same quality and caloricity.
“Normally Natural gas is blue, but if a gas which people use enclosures the red color, it means that it is polluted with the unstable airs like nitrogen and Carbon dioxide”- says Andguladze Mzia, Georgian Technical University professor. “More hydrocarbons have gas, more caloric value has it and on the contrary. It means, that CH4 is less caloric than C2H6”- She says.
Expert in Energy Gia Xuxashvili neither confirms that gas quality is law, nor rejects it.
“I cannot say in a one hand, that the gas, which Georgia imports, is bad. There must be special research centers, which have to check the quality of the natural gas all the time. Only thing, I can say surely, is that the price of the natural gas is not realistic and it must be reduced.
Unlikely to Gia Xuxashvili, Giorgi Abulashvili- Director of Energy efficiency Centre is more decided in this issue.
“As I know the caloric value of Azerbaijan gas imported in Georgia has to have 9000- 9300 MGCV, But there is no system in Georgia, even the Ministry of Energy of Georgia does not make a suitable verification of it”- Abulashvili says.
Indeed, it turns out, that The Ministry of Energy of Georgia is not responsible for this issue. Nino Kikacheishvili, the advisor of the Minister of Energy of Georgia claims, that the ministry has not duty to control the caloric value of gas.
“We do not take part in this issue. This is a matter of the companies which are involved in gas imports and trade in Georgia. Also it controls Georgia’s Oil and Gas Corporation. What about the prices, we do not interfere in it either” Kikacheishvili says.
Oil and Gas Corporation energy expert Temur Gochitashvili denies all the complaints about the law caloric value of gas and he says these complaints are a big misunderstanding. As he says, good quality of natural gas is in their company’s interest in the first place and they will not allow the importers to deceive Georgian consumers of the natural gas.
“Discussions about the law caloricity of imported gas are absurd. We have different sources of gas: Russia, Azerbaijan and 8 domestic points, from where we take it. Each of them has different caloricity value, but none of them is under the standard. “-says Gochitashvili.
As expert explains, an associated gas contains heavy hydrocarbons and methane, which are burning gases and have high caloric value, so if the associated gas were delivered through the pipelines in peoples gas stoves, it would have only the good effect on the quality of gas.
Georgian Gas transportation Company- The subsidiary company of Oil and Gas Corporation also confirms this information. Gogi Tarxnishvili- analyst from the company says that the Natural gas has good quality enough to be delivered to people’s homes and talks about the gas quality control laboratory in Georgia.
“There is a special laboratory in Georgia, which gives us possibility to verify the quality of gas. Each day our specialists take the tests from the “Red Bridge” and from each point of Georgia, where the natural gas comes from. We are making the full control of the caloricity of the Natural gas. The equipment of the laboratory is latest and the modern. It is brought over here from America. -Tarxnishvili says.
According to the expert in energy and Tbilisi Mayor Candidate on the election in May 30th 2010, under the treaty of the Baku- Tbilisi- Erzurum pipeline, gas supplied by the Azerbaijan consortium must be 8500MGCV. With this energy, housewife can boil one litre water in ten seconds. As Chanturia claims, nowadays the caloric value of Azerbaijan gas is only 6000 MGCV that gives a housewife possibility to boil same amount of water only in 15 minutes.
Gia Chanturia says that usually procuring gas has law caloricity at the first time, but after some period its caloricity becomes more and more quality. He explains Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline agreement and says, that proceeding to the following fact, each year, 8500 MGCV gas must be grown by 1.5% from the 2011 year. With this figures, 1litre water will be able to be boiled in 5 minutes.
In developed countries, natural gas price is calculating based on kw/h it can produce instead of per cubic meters. This means people pay money according how much kw/h they get from each cubic meter of natural gas. As in the Ministry of Energy of Georgia states, Georgia is not going to move to this system of calculating gas price in the near future. System change needs lots of expenses, which country does not have.
Nowadays Georgia uses 1miliard 200million cubic meter of natural gas a year. Its price for the inhabitant costs 0.51GEL per cubic meter, while it is 0.70 GEL for the industrial consumers According to the official statistics, 62-85% of the family income goes to the different communal taxes.
So, while hydrocarbon fossil fuels represent the main energy resource, and while the calculating of gas price is based on cubic meter in the country, its caloricity value and price will be important and controversial for each taxpayer in Georgia.
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