Scrambling to reduce its gas dependence on Russia, Turkey has moved to speed up the construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), designed to carry Azeri gas to Europe via Turkey, and set up three new liquefied natural gas facilities.
According to the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK), Russia provided Turkey 26.97 billion cubic meters of gas in 2014, or 54.8% of the total import of 49.26 billion cubic meters. Iran was second with 8.93 billion cubic meters, followed by Azerbaijan with 6.1 billion. Turkey imported also 4.18 billion cubic meters of gas from Algeria, 1.41 billion cubic meters from Nigeria and 1.69 billion cubic meters from the spot market. The EPDK has yet to reveal the 2015 statistics, but according to the head of the Natural Gas Distributors’ Union, the country’s gas consumption amounted to 47.5 billion cubic meters last year.
Though the union’s figure points to a decline of 1.76 billion cubic meters from the previous year, the EPDK estimates that consumption in 2016 will increase to 49.56 billion cubic meters.
The crisis with Russia, sparked by Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet at the Syrian border in November, has prompted Turkey to seek new supply strategies that would reduce reliance on Russian gas in the shortest possible time. Accordingly, diversifying supplies has emerged as a priority to change the balance.
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