On September 17, Professor Vakhtang Partsvaniya of the Caucasus School of Business and Senior Research Fellow at the CSB Research Center delivered a research seminar at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna.

The seminar focused on the changing political geography of global oil refining in an era of geopolitical fragmentation, sanctions, and disruption of established energy trade flows. The presentation addressed how sanctions and trade restrictions are reshaping the relationship between crude oil producers, refining locations, and final markets, while creating new patterns of crude processing and petroleum product trade.

Particular attention was given to the growing role of third countries and to new refining models emerging as global oil flows adjust to sanctions and geopolitical shocks. As an empirical case, Professor Partsvaniya presented the development of Georgia’s Kulevi refinery and examined its position within sanctions-era crude oil and petroleum product flows. The case provided a basis for discussing broader questions related to trade adaptation, sanctions enforcement, energy security, and the changing role of transit economies in international energy markets.

The presentation was followed by an extensive discussion and Q&A with seminar participants and researchers from CEU’s Open Society Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene (OHPA). The seminar also provided an opportunity to identify areas of common research interest, and the CSB Research Center and OHPA agreed to further develop research collaboration and explore joint projects addressing the topics discussed during the seminar.

The full recording of the seminar is available here