TBILISI, October 29 – Georgia’s main chemical producer Rustavi Azot has completed a major modernization drive aimed at cutting emissions and improving energy efficiency.
Regulators say the move could mark a turning point for Rustavi, the city often considered the country’s most polluted.
The Singapore owned plant has overhauled key production units, installed cleaner technologies, and begun work on a new facility due to open next year. Officials from the National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC), including chairman Davit Narmania, visited the plant this week to inspect the new equipment and review progress.
The upgrades include a wastewater treatment system for cyanide production, a 9-megawatt steam turbine to recover and reuse energy, and a catalytic purification reactor in the nitric acid line with a 98 percent efficiency rate. Construction is also underway on a porous ammonium nitrate plant, scheduled to enter operation in 2026.
Narmania said the investments demonstrate how large-scale industry can align with Georgia’s energy and environmental goals. “Rustavi Azot has implemented energy-efficient measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help achieve more output with less energy,” he said. “Energy efficiency is key to Georgia’s long-term energy security.”
The improvements come amid long-standing concerns over air pollution in Rustavi, a city of around 120,000 located southeast of Tbilisi. In 2022, Georgia’s Environment Ministry identified Rustavi as having the country’s highest concentration of particulate matter, largely due to emissions from the city’s industrial zone.
At the time, Noe Megrelishvili, head of the ministry’s air quality division, said progress was being made under Georgia’s new Environmental Responsibility Law, which forced factories to install filtering and self-monitoring systems. But implementation was slower than expected, and the government launched a new Air Quality Management Plan for Rustavi with Swedish assistance to tackle emissions more systematically.
Rustavi Azot, which employs over 2,000 workers, has often been at the center of that debate. As part of the Singapore-based Indorama Corporation since 2023, the company has since invested heavily in cleaner production processes to meet stricter standards.
Officials say the latest upgrades are a concrete sign of progress, not just for the company, but for the city. “This is a positive example of industrial modernization that contributes directly to environmental improvement,” GNERC said in a statement.
