On 19 February, the Georgian Agriculture Minister Levan Davitashvili announced that the German government would allocate a €2 million grant to support Georgia to construct greenhouse gas capture technologies in Rustavi to reduce the greenhouse emissions by Rustavi Azoti. The company’s emissions amounts to 4-5% of the whole country’s greenhouse emissions, reported agenda.ge.  

“In agreement with the German Ministry of Environment, we will receive significant financial assistance to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions due to nitric acid production. This is especially important as the air condition of Rustavi is disturbing,” he said.

The joint stock company (JSC) Rustavi Azoti will also allocate €2 million for the project, so that €4 million will be used in total to construct greenhouse gas capture technologies in Rustavi. Air quality standards improvement is one of the commitments taken on by Georgia in the EU-Georgia Association Agreement signed in June 2014.

Rustavi Azoti is an export-oriented company and the sole producer of nitrogen-based fertilisers in the south Caucasus. It is the primary supplier of ammonium nitrate, used in agriculture to improve crop yields, to customers in Georgia and the Caucasus region. It has around 2000 employees and an annual production capacity of up to 500,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and 220,000 tonnes of ammonia. In 2016 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) arranged a US $155 million financing package to upgrade and modernise the ammonia production line, using energy-efficient measures that will decrease energy consumption by 30 per cent, and for debt restructuring. In 2017, mass protests broke out in Georgia following a mass firing of employees in the company.