Turkish Energy Security in the Spotlight

Energy security in Turkey has been covered before by Natural Gas Europe: as recent events have shown, it remains a critical issue at the intersection of energy, politics, and security. Unless Turkey can get the problem under control it risks becoming a serious liability, coming as it does during a perfect storm of other economic and political problems.

Turkey’s energy security has two main weak points, both resulting from a primary vulnerability – the country’s extensive use of natural gas in its energy mix (around 33% of the total) and its need to import 98% of this.

The first weak point is the most dramatically apparent: repeated acts of sabotage against major cross-country gas pipelines by Kurdish separatists. The Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline was blown up on 4 October and was offline for a week; the Iran-Turkey pipeline was hit on 8 October, and again on 18 October, just three days after the flow had resumed. The third blast took place as a military convoy was passing, leaving 28 Turkish soldiers injured. Strikingly, Turkey’s BOTAS formally asked Iran to come and help repair the damage.

The attacks have been almost certainly carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting for self-rule for four decades. The conflict has waxed and waned repeatedly but this summer has seen the heaviest fighting in southeastern Turkey for years – hundreds have been killed in clashes between the PKK and the army. The militants have also attacked schools and businesses in an effort to undermine the Turkish government’s social and economic grip.

Sabotaging pipelines is part of the same strategy. Since the start of the year the three major pipelines in eastern Turkey – the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline, the BTE, and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline – have been sabotaged at least eight times. But is it effective? Admittedly the attacks have not wrought economic chaos, but it does take time to repair them. Between 1 October and 26 October, both gas pipelines – together carrying around 30 million cubic metres a day - were operating for only two days.

With these pipelines out of action Turkey is forced to increase supplies from Russia and Azerbaijan, or Iran (depending on which has been hit). In October, Turkish imports from Russia through the Blue Stream pipeline increased by 50%; supplies from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field were also boosted once the BTE came back online. Russia already supplies the lion’s share of Turkey’s gas – about 58% – so boosting imports makes Turkey, at least for short spells, even more reliant on Gazprom.

From one perspective it’s encouraging that Turkey has an alternative supplier, particularly one with the capacity to significantly boost imports at short notice. But reliance on Russia carries its own risks, and is Turkey’s other energy security weak point.

Russia has been a reliable supplier to Turkey – so far. Its reputation for using energy as a political weapon is hardly a secret in the region. The security of Russian supplies has been based on the warm political relationship between Ankara and Baku: if that changes then it also changes the calculus behind Turkey’s enormous dependence on Russian gas.

Of course, Turkey is not some puny former Soviet satellite. Cutting supplies for political reasons would not do Russia’s international standing any good and would be a major red line for Turkey and the West. But ‘technical reasons’ is a conveniently broad excuse, and it is not inconceivable that Russia would use it if it felt suitably aggrieved.

Right now the situation in the Middle East is sorely testing the Moscow-Ankara relationship, with Turkey siding with Syrian rebels, and Russia working with Bashar al-Assad to quell the uprising. The lowest point in relations so far came when Turkey impounded a Russian plane bound for Syria, claiming that it was carrying weapons.

Ankara’s efforts to develop the Southern Corridor have also put it at odds with Moscow – earlier this year there was much talk about Gazprom ‘threatening’ Turkey over the latter’s decision to build the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline from Azerbaijan. The energy giant said bluntly that when TANAP was completed, Turkey should go to Azerbaijan and not Russia for additional supplies when pipelines get blown up.

This is not so much of a threat as a statement of the obvious. But it underlines two things. One is that TANAP will run cross-country, not under the seabed like the pipelines from Russia, and will thus be vulnerable to PKK sabotage. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the US Elin Suleymanov has been seeking to reassure international partners that the PKK is not a threat to TANAP, but as recent events have shown there is no such thing as perfect security.

The second is that rightly or wrongly, Turkish policymakers perceive that Russia is willing to use its gas exports as a political weapon, and in the event of supply disruption elsewhere Turkey would become even more vulnerable to the Kremlin’s capriciousness. Turkish officials have admitted that relying on Russian gas has constrained their freedom of action, notably after the Russia-Georgia war when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that if Turkey criticised Russia “we would be left in the dark”. Going cap-in-hand to Moscow in the middle of a diplomatic stand-off is not something which the famously proud Erdoğan relishes.

Similarly, relying on Iran if the BTE pipeline is sabotaged binds Turkey closer to its awkward eastern neighbour. As well as the political costs of this - which are acute given the tensions over the nuclear programme, Syria, and Iraq – this puts Turkey at risk of breaking strict sanctions on Iran and facing harsh penalties from the US and the EU.

So from Ankara’s point of view there are two serious and interlocking risks – one real, one (for now) hypothetical. Cross-country pipelines are being sabotaged often enough to constitute a significant threat to energy security, particularly as winter approaches and demand soars. The economic damage, to both productivity and the current account deficit, will become increasingly serious if the sabotage continues.

With land pipelines out of action Turkey is forced to rely on Gazprom: an expensive option which limits Turkey’s political freedom of action, a very valuable commodity given the political tension growing between Moscow and Ankara. The threat of price hikes or ‘technical’ cut-offs is a useful sword of Damocles, even if Russia never feels inclined to actually use it.

TANAP, when it finally comes onstream in 2018, will simply leave Turkey more reliant on vulnerable cross-country pipelines - notwithstanding an end to the fight against the PKK, which seems unthinkable at the moment.

So Turkey now faces an increasingly urgent task. Finding new ways to prevent sabotage would be a vital first step, but not enough. LNG imports and domestic production are being prioritised, but these won’t be enough to reduce the dependence on pipelines. Until it can find reliable and abundant alternatives, Turkey’s power plants, businesses, and homes will remain at the mercy of Moscow and the PKK.

Alex Jackson is an analyst of political, energy and security issues in the Caspian region. He is based in London and can be contacted at ajackson320@gmail.com.