Georgia increases petroleum product exports 8-fold in Q1 to $208 mln

TBILISI. April 20 (Interfax) - Exports of petroleum products from Georgia amounted to $208.15 million in Q1 2026 compared to $26.1 million a year earlier, the country's National Statistics Service said.

The figure therefore increased eightfold.

Due to the sharp increase in petroleum products exports, their share in Georgia's total exports equaled 12.1% compared to 1.9% a year earlier, taking second place in the export structure after passenger car re-exports and ahead of other traditional export goods (precious metal ores, ferroalloys, copper ores, alcoholic beverages, wine and mineral water).

According to data provided by the service, supplies of petroleum products from Georgia to Turkey amounted to 100,800 tonnes in Q1 (1,500 tonnes a year earlier) worth $48.2 million ($673,500), while 29,200 tonnes worth $22.8 million were supplied to China (there were no petroleum products supplies to China in Q1 2025).

According to statistics, imports of oil and petroleum products into Georgia in Q1 amounted to $338.6 million, up 12.1%. Imports of crude oil from Russia amounted to 298,300 tonnes worth $118.5 million, whereas there were no oil supplies from Russia in Q1 2025. Imports of petroleum products from Russia decreased by a quarter to $117.4 million (180,400 tonnes).

It was previously reported that the first stage of Georgia's single oil refinery, located in the port of Kulevi (in the eastern coastal part of the Black Sea near the village of Kulevi, Khobi municipality), was put into operation at the end of last year. The plant's capacity is currently 1.2 million tonnes per year. The commissioning of the second stage will increase the plant's capacity to 4.5 million tonnes of oil per year.

Kulevi also hosts a terminal belonging to the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) with a capacity of 10 million tonnes of oil cargo per year.

In February this year, the European Union considered the possibility of imposing sanctions on the port of Kulevi due to supplies of Russian oil. Georgian authorities said that the sanctions regime was not being violated at the port.

At the end of March, the general director of the Georgian company Black Sea Petroleum (BSP, owner of the refinery in Kulevi), David Potskhveria, said that the plant intended to completely abandon importing Russian oil and switch to raw materials from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. The EU market is currently closed to products manufactured using Russian oil, and alternative raw materials would remove this restriction, he said.

Previously, Potskhveria said that the refinery imports Russian oil for processing, taking into account current sanctions restrictions and based on the recommendations of British and Swiss law firms.