Turkey Cuts Gas for Powergen in 2018
Turkey’s gas imports during the first half of 2018 were down by 6.79% on year to 25.946bn m³, which was mostly due to a decline in demand from power generators which account for a third of the total. They used 4.8% less gas, or 8.4bn m³, but ramped up coal. Gas is sold in dollars, and the lire has weakened sharply in the past months.
Its total demand declined 7.3% to 25.828bn m3, while tiny domestic production rose 13% to 205mn m3, according to statistics from Turkey’s energy market regulator EPDK. Turkey’s sole client Greece also took 264mn m3 gas, almost unchanged on year. The country’s gas deposit also stood at 3.243bn m3 on June 30.
Turkey’s gas imports(mn m³)
Source: EPDK
The energy ministry over the past two years has increased efforts to reduce dependence on imported gas by building power plants that run on domestic coal and renewables, whilst also continuing to invest in new LNG terminals, and new pipelines to import gas from Azerbaijan (Tanap) and Russia (TurkStream).
It is believed Turkey wants to generate more baseload power from coal, but keep the option to use gas to meet generation for peak demand periods. Its 'Vision 2023' policy last year aims to boost renewables' share in the electricity mix by then to 30%, raise coal to 30%, raise nuclear to 10%, and reduce gas to 30%.