Anaklia is the Georgian landing point for a 1,195 km power cable

The Black Sea Submarine Cable is a high-voltage direct current link between the Georgian and Romanian grids, with a route of about 1,195 km in total and roughly 1,100 km of it under the sea. It is specified at ±500 to ±525 kV and rated at 1,300 MW, within a design band of 1,000 to 1,500 MW, and it carries an integrated fibre-optic telecoms cable alongside the power conductors. The Georgian landing point is Anaklia; the Romanian end is at Constanța and Topraisar. The central Black Sea basin it has to cross is more than 2,200 to 2,500 metres deep, which is the reason the engineering is hard and the survey work comes before anything else.

On 29 July 2026 Transelectrica hosted a technical coordination workshop in Bucharest, and the project formally entered its marine survey preparation stage. The surveys ahead are geophysical, geotechnical and oceanographic — in other words, mapping and testing the seabed along the route before a cable design can be fixed. Transelectrica and Georgian State Electrosystem lead the project jointly, with the Italian engineering consultancy CESI handling technical design, procurement and survey supervision, alongside the Romanian Maritime Hydrographic Directorate and the Romanian Border Police. Georgia has allocated GEL 25 million for geological and survey preparations. Survey preparation is a real step, and it is also several steps short of construction.

Capital expenditure is estimated at €2.3 to €3.5 billion, including grid integration and converter stations. The project traces back to a 2022 Strategic Partnership Agreement between the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary, and it is listed by the EU as a Project of Mutual Interest and included in ENTSO-E's Ten-Year Network Development Plan. Financing is backed by the World Bank under the ESPIRE programme. If built to the stated specification it would be the world's longest submarine power cable system, ahead of the 724 km North Sea Link. One number to treat carefully: a separate report notes the estimated cost has risen by half in four years, which is the normal trajectory for a project at this stage and a reason to read any completion date as provisional.

Two reasons, and neither is a promise. The first is Anaklia: a landing station, converter plant and the associated construction traffic change the character of a stretch of coast that until now has been talked about mainly in terms of a port. Anyone holding land in that part of Samegrelo should be following the route and permitting work rather than the headline. The second is the framing. A grid link that the EU lists as a Project of Mutual Interest, with World Bank financing behind the preparatory work, is the sort of thing that appears in investment presentations for years before it appears on a seabed. It is useful context for a buyer asking why Georgia attracts capital — and not a reason on its own to buy anything.