Zurab Nogaideli said Georgia will buy Russian gas at a new price of $235 per 1,000 cubic meters until gas supply from Azerbaijan is restored.
Georgia has until now received most of its natural gas from Russia at $110 per 1,000 cubic meters, but Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has doubled the price as of 2007.
Georgia has now agreed to pay $235 per 1,000 cubic meters, and Gazprom has asked Tbilisi to stipulate the amount of gas it will need next year and to sign a corresponding contract, otherwise gas that could have been bought by Georgia would be sold elsewhere.
Gazprom signed three contracts Friday for the supply of 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Georgia in 2007 at $235 per 1,000 cubic meters, the head of the company's export arm, Gazexport, said.
Alexander Medvedev said the contracts were clinched with three companies on condition that 2006 supplies total 1.8 billion cubic meters.
Nogaideli said the price for Azerbaijan's gas, which Georgia will receive after deliveries are restored, will be much lower than Gazprom's price, but refused to be specific, citing commercial confidentiality.
He said earlier this week that Azerbaijan will be Georgia's main natural gas supplier from 2007, adding that by the end of the week Baku will begin supplying gas from its Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea to Georgia.
Tbilisi has also initiated talks with neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey to find alternative sources of gas. It wants to receive 800 million cubic meters of Turkey's quota for natural gas pumped via the South Caucasus (Baku-Tblisi-Erzerum) pipeline from the Shah Deniz deposit.
But Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has reportedly failed to secure extra gas supplies during his three-day negotiations in Turkey.
CNN-Turk TV channel cited a Turkish Foreign Ministry source Friday as saying Saakashvili "has returned home empty-handed."
Turkey's energy minister agreed earlier in the month to transfer part of his country's quota of 3 billion cubic meters of gas produced at the Shah Deniz field to Georgia and Azerbaijan. He said Friday talks with his Georgian counterpart, currently in Istanbul, will continue regardless of Saakashvili's departure.
