Putin, Erdogan Launch TurkStream
The offshore section of the second part of TurkStream (TS) is now finished and its completion ceremony was held November 19 in Istanbul with the presidents of Russia and Turkey in attendance.
TS is the second direct line between the two countries, the first being the 16bn m³/yr Blue Stream which began operations in the previous decade and crosses the Black Sea in a north-south orientation, rather than the east-west of TS.
Gazprom completed the first leg of offshore TurkStream (TS1) in April 2018, and will supply 15.75bn m³/yr to Turkey’s domestic market from late next year; the second part, TS2, is intended at exporting the same volume to Europe. The parallel sections, 930 km each, together will transit a total volume of 31bn m3/yr.
Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called Russia a “reliable partner and important energy supplier” during the completion ceremony. His counterpart, Vladimir Putin, stated that Turkey is becoming an important gas hub, adding that Ankara and Moscow are planning some $100bn/yr in trade turnover.
Netherlands-registered SouthStream Transport, responsible for the offshore section and terminals (Anapa in Russia and Kiyikoy in Turkey) told NGW that only the offshore pipelines have been completed and work on the terminals is ongoing. “The offshore project, with capacity of 31bn m3/yr, is ready and the whole project, including terminals and nearshore 2.4 km pipelines will be complete by late 2019,” a spokesman said.
It is not clear yet which route TS2 will take; towards Italy, through Greece, or through the Balkans via Bulgaria. A Gazprom/Botas joint venture will build the 180km onshore section from Kiyikoy to the border with Greece. TS1 will replace Gazprom’s gas exports to Turkey through the Trans-Balkan pipeline that runs through Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. The reduction in entry flows into eastern Ukraine resulting from this diversion is expected to cause some problems in the Ukrainian system, whose pipeline serves both import and transit purposes.
Last year, Turkey imported around half of its 28.6bn m3 Russian gas intake via the Trans-Balkan pipeline.
Gazprom expects to sell volumes of 205bn m3 this year, about 5% more than in 2017. The company said it produced 429.6bn m3 from January 1 to November 15, about 6% more than in the same period in last year, of which 171.6bn m3 went beyond the former Soviet Union, which shows a 3.5% growth year-on-year. These figures exclude LNG from Sakhalin Energy in Russia's far east.