BAKU
Azerbaijan will be supplying additional natural gas to Turkey in February to meet its increasing demand amid harsh winter conditions, in a move that comes after neighbouring Iran cut supplies last month.
SOCAR Enerji Ticaret AŞ, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state energy firm SOCAR, will supply Turkey with 4 million cubic metres (mcm) of natural gas per day in February, an informed industrial source told the Tribune.
The company has won the bid on the spot pipeline gas capacity reserve issued by Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) last month. The gas will be supplied through the Türközü entry point in the eastern province of Ardahan.
“Deliveries of additional gas may last until mid-February”, the SOCAR source said. “Turkey needs to meet growing gas demands due to the extreme cold weather and compensate for lower gas supplies from Iran.”
Iran said last month that it would halt gas exports to Turkey for 10 days, citing a technical malfunction. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said full gas flow from Iran was expected to return in 10 to 15 days.
The sudden stoppage in the flows through the eastern Ağrı province has forced Turkey to limit gas use and cut electricity supplies for industrial sites, prompting some manufacturers to halt production.
Compounding the gas concerns, the country’s natural gas consumption hit a record high of around 288 million cubic meters (mcm) on January 19, as household use rocketed due to colder-than-normal weather, according to the state-run pipeline company BOTAŞ.
The daily gas flow to Turkey stands at around 270 mcm, out of which the TurkStream gas pipeline transmits 44 mcm, the Blue Stream pipeline supplies 47 mcm and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) is responsible for 17.3 mcm.
Turkey is almost fully dependent on imported gas from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. According to the latest official data, Iran alone provided 16 percent of Turkey’s natural gas needs in the first 10 months of 2021. The neighbour had been supplying 28 mcm of gas per day.
Last year, Azerbaijan almost doubled gas exports to Turkey, Georgia and Europe fin 2021 from its giant Shah Deniz offshore field, official data showed, as the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) continues to help the country increase its share in the market until now dominated by Russia.
Gas exports from Shah Deniz amounted to 17.618 bcm last year, 43.6 percent up from a year earlier, data released by the State Customs Committee showed.
The BP-led consortium which is developing the Shah Deniz project in Azerbaijan has been pumping gas from the offshore field’s first phase since 2006, delivering more than 10 bcm a year of gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey through the South Caucasus Pipeline.
The second phase started output in 2018, adding 16 bcm of gas production capacity at its peak to bring total capacity to 26 bcm.
Azerbaijan started supplying commercial natural gas to Europe from the second stage of the Shah Deniz project via its $40-billion Southern Gas Corridor in December 2020, when the corridor’s last part, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), became operational. The project hopes to reduce Europe’s dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia, which currently controls 34 percent of the continent’s gas market.
The 878 km TAP pipeline connects to TANAP on the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crossing Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before reaching Italy’s southern coast.
Gas to Europe was delivered through the TAP. Exports to Turkey were made through the TANAP and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipelines.
Azerbaijan’s goal is to eventually supply the European market with 10 bcm of gas a year, including 8 bcm to Italy and a combined 2 bcm to Greece and Bulgaria. This year, the country plans to export 5 bcm to Europe and over 12 bcm to Turkey.