Turkey to diversify gas supplies following dispute with Russia

• 8 years ago (2015-12-03)

Europe 1061 Middle East 310

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President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Dayutoglu have visited both Qatar and Azerbaijan this week in order to avoid any economic damage from the incident as winter sets in.

A Turkish energy official said to Reuters: “There is indeed a crisis right now… We are exploring how we can offset this… Dayutoglu and Erdogan have personally taken the initiative to make sure Turkey doesn’t experience a problem in terms of energy supplies.”

Turkey buys 60 per cent of its gas needs – some 27 billion cubic metres – from Russia, which enters the country near Istanbul; an area that will be highly sensitive to any energy shocks.

Other options being considered by Ankara are boosting purchases from Iran (Turkey’s second largest supplier) or to start buying gas from Turkmenistan. Supplies from northern Iraq are also another possibility.

While Erdogan is hopeful about securing further deals with Qatar, Turkish think-tank TEPAV has said that this will only cover a small portion of the expected shortfall as Turkey does not have enough capacity to take on extra liquefied natural gas.