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8.0 Industry & Sectors 8.1 Sector news
8.1.1 Oil & gas sector news
Azerbaijan pumpsthe bulk of its crude oil through the BP-operated 1.2mn bpd Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that connects offshore Azeri oil fields with an export terminal on Turkey’s Mediterranean Coast, Ceyhan port, and the much smaller 100,000 bpd Western Route Export Pipeline (WREP).
BTC carriedalmost 640,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude last year, mostly consisting of Azeri supplies, but also some volumes from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, while WREP delivered 77,000 bpd.
A third, 105,000 bpd line, Baku-Novorossiysk, can carry Azeri oil to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk but has only been used intermittently in recent years.
Azerbaijan also supplied 9.2bn cubic metres of gas to Turkey last year via the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP). SCP forms part of the longer Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) network which cost BP and its partners around $40bn to build.
8.1.2 Automotive sector news
Sales in Turkey of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) leapt 115.8% y/y in Septemberto 90,619 units, the country’s Automotive Distributors Association (ODD) saidon October 2.
In the January-September period, sales climbed 75.5% y/y, the association also said. It also revised up its full-year sales forecast to 700,000-750,000 vehicles.
Combined passenger car and LCV sales in Turkey increased 134.4% on an annual basis to 62,000 units in August. The passenger car market expanded 106% y/y with 44,000 units sold while LCV sales skyrocketed, rising 265% y/y to 17,000 units.
Auto sales slumped after March when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit the country, but sales recovered sharply in June and July thanks to cheap loans provided by state-run lenders as the government worked to flood the economy with cheap credit.
The government, however, in early September hiked taxes on most imported cars in a move designed to lessen the trade slump and deficit attributed to the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.
The latest tax hikes were expected to hit sales in the remainder of the year.
Turkey’s auto production increased by 4.3% on an annual basis in Septemberto 142,000 units, data from the Automotive Manufacturers’ Association, OSD, showed.
The country’s passenger car output, however, edged up 0.1% y/y in the month to around 91,000 units.
The association also reported that total vehicle sales grew 117% y/y to 93,000 units with sales of passenger cars rising 102% y/y to 72,000.
37 TURKEY Country Report November 2020 www.intellinews.com
