Opposition politician Gotsiridze links surge in petroleum exports to Kulevi refinery, questions plant operations

Georgian opposition politician Roman Gotsiridze on Thursday said the sharp increase in the country’s petroleum product exports was linked to the Kulevi oil refinery - an oil port on the eastern Black Sea coast in Georgia - and questioned the transparency of its operations.

Gotsiridze said newly published foreign trade statistics show that Georgia exported petroleum products worth $313 million between January and April this year. He added that another $80 million worth of refined petroleum products had been exported in November and December last year, bringing total exports over the past six months to $393 million.

“The increase in exports of this type of goods by thousands of percent is linked to the Kulevi oil refinery,” Gotsiridze said.

He claimed the refinery had been importing and exporting large volumes of Russian petroleum products even before becoming fully operational.

Gotsiridze also referred to previous calls from the European Union for sanctions against the Kulevi port, adding that the facility ultimately avoided restrictions.

According to the opposition politician, little public information is available about the refinery’s actual operations.

“To this day, nobody knows what is happening at the Kulevi oil refinery. It is more secretive than a military facility,” he stated, alleging that even pro-government media had not been granted access.

Gotsiridze questioned whether the refinery was genuinely processing crude oil or merely re-exporting semi-finished Russian petroleum products.

He argued that production volumes of the scale reflected in export statistics would normally require significantly increased gas and electricity consumption, as well as higher tax revenues and visible industrial activity.

Gotsiridze also said suspicions were reinforced by the fact that the refinery’s main buyer was reportedly Togo, which he noted does not possess an oil refinery of its own.

He noted the Port of Lomé is widely known as a hub for petroleum re-exports and has previously been linked to the re-export of sanctioned Russian oil products.