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Electricity production was also substantially down in May, declining by 18% y/y. Natural gas-fired power plants generated only 8% of total electricity output in the month.
Turkey’s natural gas-fired power plants, which at 25,654 MW had the highest share in the country’s overall electricity production capacity of 91,565 MW in April, have hit trouble due to their long-term gas supply contracts and the recent fall in electricity prices.
A price hike for household electricity consumers is expected in the upcoming months, despite the historically low oil prices on global markets. It will stem from currency fluctuation and the structural design of the Turkish electricity market, energy expert and price comparison website encazip.com founder Cagada Kirim told Hurriyet Daily News on May 12.
Natural gas had the largest share of 30.5% in Turkey’s 84,957 MW of installed electricity production capacity in 2019.
Turkey imported 45.2bn cubic metres of natural gas in 2019, marking a 10% y/y decline.
Russia remained Turkey’s largest supplier with a 34% share of the market, followed by Azerbaijan with 21% and Iran with 17%. Turkish gas imports from Russia slumped by more than a third last year to 15.5 bcm.
Some 72% of natural gas was transferred through pipelines, while the market share of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was 28%. In the LNG category, Algeria was the largest supplier with 5.7 bcm, while Nigeria came second with 1.2 bcm.
The EPDK data also showed that natural gas consumption in Turkey dropped 8% to 45.3 bcm in 2019 compared with the previous year.
Residential units’ consumption accounted for some 32% of all gas consumption last year, while the share of electricity power plants was 21%, or 9.3 bcm, representing a sharp 41% decline from 2018.
Turkey imported 2.06 bcm of LNG in March, accounting for 52.5% of total gas imports, with US supplies markedly growing. Pipeline gas imports in the month amounted to 1.87 bcm, with imports via pipelines from Russia and Iran down 72% y/y and 33% y/y respectively.
Spot LNG prices have continued to decrease of late amid a glut of supply. Turkey intends to benefit from lower international LNG prices and so has kept pipeline gas imports to a minimum.
Prices in long-term take-or-pay gas contracts are calculated quarterly over the oil prices in the past nine months. After the end of the quarter on June 30, Turkey benefited from the oil price collapse across Q2.
On July 1, gas flow through TurkStream was resumed following maintenance works.
Russia supplies gas to Turkey via the TurkStream and Blue Stream undersea pipelines traversing the Black Sea. They have a total capacity of 32 bcm per year.
Also on July 1, Iran has resumed the export of natural gas to Turkey three months after the cross-border pipeline between the two countries was damaged in a militant attack.
75​ TURKEY Country Report​ August 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com