Türkiye realizes its 27-year-old dream in natural gas: First steps were taken with four countries

While European countries, which experienced a bottleneck in natural gas supply after the Russia-Ukraine crisis, sought gas supply from different countries, Turkey took action to respond to this search with its pipeline infrastructure in line with its goal of becoming a natural gas center.

Turkey made its first natural gas export agreement of the year with Bulgaria in January. An agreement covering the annual export of 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkey to Bulgaria for 13 years was signed.

A first will happen: Gas export to a country without borders

Turkey, which concluded negotiations with Hungary after Bulgaria, agreed on natural gas exports with this country in August.

With the agreement, Turkey took a step to export gas via pipelines to a country without borders for the first time. According to the Hungarian press, Turkey foresees 275 million cubic meters of gas export to this country.

Shipment of 6 million cubic meters to Romania and Moldova

Turkey, which signed its third gas export agreement of the year with Romania, will export up to 4 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to Romania. Shipment was planned to begin on October 1 and end on March 31, 2025. Turkey, which signed the fourth natural gas export agreement of the year with Moldova, will export 2 million cubic meters of natural gas daily to this country. It was decided that gas shipments to Moldova would start on October 1.

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar, at the Abu Dhabi International Oil Fair and Conference held in the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which he attended yesterday, said that Turkey’s natural gas shipment to Europe will be transferred to Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania via the Western Balkan Pipeline. “And we send gas to Moldova. We are becoming more and more a center for natural gas.” he announced with his words.

The agreements are the “preliminary curtain” of the goal of becoming a natural gas trade center

Ankara Crisis and Political Research Center (ANKASAM) Energy Chief Advisor Cenk Pala, in his evaluation, said, “Turkey has achieved the goal that we have been talking about for the last 26-27 years, especially Azerbaijan, in terms of oil and natural gas, to turn Turkey into a corridor between east and west, and from there to a trade center.” “What has been signed is actually the preliminary stage of this. This is a good work. BOTAŞ is doing good things. It paves the way for trade. It ensures the realization of this project, which we call the Southern Gas Corridor.” said.

Stating that there was a big gap in the gas supply of the continent due to the deactivation of Nord Stream-1 and 2 after the Russia-Ukraine War and the European Union’s general attempt to move away from Russian gas, Pala said that this gap was created by Europe, except for Turkey, Egypt, Libya and Algeria. He said that it would take at least 5 years to try to be filled with countries like these and that these countries would be insufficient to meet Europe’s needs due to the large amount of their own consumption.

Türkiye is the country that can respond to Europe’s gas needs fastest.

Pala stated that although Europe tries to meet its gas needs with liquefied natural gas (LNG), most of the agreements in the LNG market have been signed and shipments are largely directed to the Asian market, and that Turkey is the country that will respond to Europe’s needs the fastest.

He stated that Turkey can quickly ship 10-15 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe with the infrastructure it has with TANAP and BOTAŞ, or that European countries can benefit from Turkey’s LNG infrastructure with an annual capacity of 25 billion cubic meters.

“Anyone who wants can go and buy LNG from Qatar, bring it and download it to one of BOTAŞ terminals. BOTAŞ will deliver it to Europe through these pipeline connections.” Pala said that a capacity increase should be made in the Western Pipeline in order to ship more gas apart from the existing agreements made by Turkey.

“Turkey can be an important trade center for Europe”

Regarding the recent agreements made by Turkey, Erste Investment Oil and Gas Analyst Tamas Pletser said, “I think Turkey can be an important center for Europe’s gas supply. Turkey has access not only to Russian crude oil and gas, but also to Azerbaijan, Northern Iraq, Israel “The market may reach different LNG sources and even Cypriot gas in the long term.” made his assessment.

Pointing out that Turkey’s plan to become a natural gas center is not new, Pletser said that the Moscow administration does not currently have a pipeline to directly supply gas due to the Russia-Ukraine War.

Pletser said, “This plan can be revised again. I think this is extremely positive for Turkey.” said.