Georgia to announce oil and gas exploration tender

TBILISI Feb 28 (Reuters) - Georgia will soon announce a licensing tender for six oil and gas blocks, the head of the technical division at the National Agency for Oil and Gas said on Thursday.

"The tender will be announced in the coming weeks", Alexander Chabukiani told Reuters, adding that the licence is for exploration and production.

Georgian state-owned company Saknavtobi estimates that potential oil and gas reserves on the blocks could amount to 400 million tonnes.

Saknavtobi says one block has gas reserves of up to 7.7 billion cubic metres.

Several foreign firms have been extracting oil and gas in ex-Soviet Georgia but production volumes of oil are low, rarely exceeding several thousand tonnes a year.

Georgia has had foreign firms in its oil and gas exploration and production industry since 1995.

Oil production in Georgia hit a peak in the 1980s, when it produced around three million tonnes a year. (Reporting by Niko Mchedlishvili; editing by James Jukwey)