Could export of Azerbaijani gas to Turkey increase by 3.5 times?

Saltuk Duzoil, TANAP General Manager, made a statement for Reuters saying that Turkey could buy up to 21 billion cub.m. of gas and this will happen as soon as TANAP reaches its full capacity.

However, neither the Azerbaijani government, nor State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has commented on the statement of TANAP General Manager yet. One should mention that he has been appointed by the project operator, which is SOCAR.

According to the analysts of Turan news agency in order for Turkey to increase volume of Azerbaijani gas purchase up to 21 billion cub.m. of gas a year, several factors must coincide.

First of all, according to SOCAR’s statement, by 2026 31 billion cub.m. of gas must be pumped via TANAP. Of this volume 16 billion cub.m. is gas from the Shah Deniz Stage-2 project, of which 6 billion cub.m. will be exported to the Turkish market.  In addition to that, by that time Turkey will receive 6 billion cub.m. of gas from the Shah Deniz Phase 1 project via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline. There will be total of 6 billion cub.m. of gas from the Shah Deniz field.

Secondly, according to SOCAR’s statement, TANAP and most likely trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP) will be expanded by 2023. Most likely gas from the Absheron field will be transported via the expanded part. Considering that the provisions of the EU Gas Directive will be applied to the expanded part of TAP (50% of access  for the third countries), more gas will be most likely delivered to the Turkish market. It is true that Azerbaijani gas is claimed in the Balkan countries, but it is not a big volume (from several hundred million to billion of cub.m.)

Thirdly, by 2026 gas from other Azerbaijani fields – Umid-Babak and deep-lying gas beds Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) – is also planned to be exported via TANAP. When the Southern Gas Corridor till the Turkish-Greek border is fully loaded and if the prices at the European gas market do not satisfy the suppliers from Azerbaijan, then Turkey will become a probable market.

Since summer 2015 Romania refuses to import Russian gas. If in 2007 this country consumed 18 billion cub.m. of gas and  imported up to 5 billion cub.m. of Russian gas, then last year Romania reduced the consumption to 11 billion cub.m. thanks to efficient management of energy resources and introduction of alternative energy. Several gas fields have been discovered on the Romanian shelf and their development is scheduled for 2018-2020. In March 2015 Romania started export of small volume of gas from Moldova. The delivery of Romanian gas to Bulgaria, where Russian gas constitutes 95% of consumption, is under consideration. Since 2019 Romania will be able to receive gas from Azerbaijan and Greece (it has LNG terminal) via the interconnector.—0—