Turkey’s Pipeline Imports Increase

Turkish state-owned BOTAŞ imported approximately 31.73 billion cubic meters of natural gas from January to October 2014 compared to 30.89 billion cubic meters (bcm) during the same period last year.

BOTAŞ released a report on December 1st outlining that Turkey imported gas from Azerbaijan, which was supplied via the South Caucasus Pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum), Iran and Russia.

Imported natural gas through pipelines shared about 82 percent of total gas imports in 2012. Turkey also makes purchases of liquified natural gas (LNG) from Nigeria and Qatar. There is no information on the country’s CNG imports during last ten months.

The report failed to provide further details on the sources of increased gas but recently the Iranian government said that it has planned to increase gas delivery to Turkey to 10 bcm per annum. Iran delivered approximately 8.4 bcm of gas to Turkey in 2013.

In total, BOTAŞ imported 38.42 billion cubic meters of gas from various sources in 2013, compared to 43.09 bcm in 2012.

BOTAŞ also re-exported around 554 mcm of gas in January to October 2014 and 32.42 bcm of gas was sold on Turkey's domestic market during this period.

Dalga Khatinoglu