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demand to 33.3 bcm and increased imports from Azerbaijan and LNG suppliers.
“The economic turmoil in Turkey [has] made consumers there particularly sensitive to the price of gas being supplied, with gas consumption pressured by alternative cheap sources such as coal,” Moscow-based VTB Capital wrote in a recent research note. “Gazprom’s gas is probably the most expensive on the Turkish market, so to keep its market share the company is inevitably going to have to sacrifice the margin.”
Turkey’s natural gas imports and consumption drop markedly in September. Turkey imported little more than 3bn cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas in September, a 7.4% decline on an annual basis, data from energy regulator EPDK showed on November 26.
The country’s gas consumption plunged by 20.4% to 2.63 bcm from around 3.30 bcm in September 2018.
The decline in natural gas imports and consumption is almost certainly related to unusually warm weather, which is bad news for gas distribution companies facing lower revenues from lower consumption.
Some 2.47 bcm of natural gas imported in September was supplied via pipelines, while 0.57 bcm was delivered in the form of LNG.
Russia was the largest supplier of natural gas with 1bcm, followed by Azerbaijan with 819mn cubic metres. Iran delivered 648mn cubic metres of natural gas to Turkey in the month.
The amount of natural gas in storage decreased nearly 1.2% y/y to 3.24 bcm in September while the country’s natural gas production increased to 37.2mn cubic metres from 36.5 mcm in September 2018.
In 2018, Turkey’s total oil product imports declined by 9.2% y/y to 38.7mn tonnes, with crude oil imports falling 18.6% to 21mn tonnes.
Turkey consumes around 50bn cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas per year. It has four pipeline entry points and LNG re-gasification facilities.
The country imports gas via pipelines from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Last year, the country imported 23.6 bcm of gas from Russia, 7.9 bcm from Iran and 7.5 from Azerbaijan. The rest, amounting to 22.5%, was received in the form of LNG.
Turkey's LNG imports reached a record high of 7.14 bcm in the first half of 2019, according to Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority's (EPDK).
The share of LNG in natural gas imports surpassed 30% for the first time in the January-June period, when there were 23.29 bcm of natural gas imports.
84 TURKEY Country Report December 2019 www.intellinews.com
