By Helena Bedwell

Georgian Oil and Gas Corp., the former Soviet republic’s state-owned energy company, is considering an initial public offering to attract investment, the energy minister said.

“A minority stake should be offered, but this won’t happen in the next two years,” Alexander Khetaguri said by telephone today in the capital Tbilisi. No final decision on whether to sell shares has been made, he said.

Mariam Valishvili, a deputy to Khetaguri, said earlier today that the state was considering selling as much as 25 percent of the company to finance expansion, including gas storage and a liquefied gas facility.

Georgian Oil and Gas Corp. was created in 2006 by combining state shares in existing energy companies. It owns the Georgian sections of theNorth-South Main Gas Pipeline, which delivers gas from Russia primarily to Armenia, and the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, which moves Azeri oil to a terminal on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, Tamar Shoshiashvili, a company spokeswoman, said.

In February, Georgia announced plans to build a plant to liquefy as much as 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year for export to Europe. Investors in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine expressed interest.

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