The meeting was also attended by Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, Romeo Mikautadze, and Head of the State Agency for Oil and Gas, Giorgi Tatishvili.

The importance of the successful development of the project implemented by OMW Petrom on the Georgian Black Sea shelf was underlined at the meeting. It was noted that according to expert estimates, there are significant reserves of natural gas on the Georgian shelf. It was said that OMW Petrom will carry out three-dimensional seismic exploration work in the next one year, while drilling will start at the next stage of the project.

The company also expressed a desire to implement exchange programs for students of Georgian higher education institutions from next year.

OMV Petrom S.A. will soon start oil and gas exploration and extraction works on the Black Sea shelf. Thus, Georgia will join the countries, where oil and gas exploration is underway on the shelf section. The contract involves the extraction, acquisition, processing, and reinterpretation of geological and geophysical data on the continental shelf of the Black Sea (5282 km2) for a period of 25 years in order to extract oil and gas. OMV PETROM is a subsidiary of OMV, one of the top-10 oil-producing companies in Europe. The cost of the drilling stage depends on the results of the studies. The cost of a similar project – the deepwater Domino discovery in Romanian territorial waters, which is linked to the Austrian OMV, is $ 1.5 billion.