Moscow, January 22:

Russia today discontinued gas deliveries to Georgia after an accident occurred on the pipeline linking the two countries, a Russian emergencies ministry official told the Interfax news agency.

“Today at 02:55 am Moscow time, we detected a sharp drop in pressure on the Mozdok-Tbilisi gas pipeline,” a spokesman for the ministry’s office in the Russian republic of Northern Ossetia, Vladimir Ivanov, told Interfax, “At 03:05 am, the decision was made to totally close down the pipeline, and we are now considering whether to bring on line a reserve branch of the pipeline.”

The accident occurred on the Russian side, just before the border, Ivanov added. He said that emergencies ministry specialists went to the place where the accident occurred to investigate, but that they would have to work under difficult conditions, owing to heavy snow. Georgia is heavily dependent on Russia for its gas supplies.

Price to go down

BERLIN: The price of gas will go down from $60 per oil baril equivalent currently to between $40 and $50, a top executive with Russia’s Gazprom, the world’s top gas producer said, “The price of gas will stabilise between $40 and $50 per baril” equivalent. — AFP