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16 I Companies & Markets bne March 2025
$232 per 1,000 cubic metres (€20 per MWh) and $349 per 1,000 cubic metres (€30 per MWh), depending on how early in the year pipeline exports commence.
As of January 23, 2025, European natural gas prices have stabilised at approximately $580 per 1,000 cubic metres, near a three-week high, as markets balance mixed signals about supply and demand.
In November 2024, Goldman Sachs had previously revised its 2025 TTF price forecast upward to $464 per 1,000 cubic metres (€40 per MWh), compared with $395 per 1,000 cubic metres (€34 per MWh) previously, citing similar concerns over supply and demand dynamics.
TurkStream hits monthly records
The TurkStream pipeline transports Russian gas to Turkey and southern and southeastern Europe via the Black Sea. It has a total annual capacity of 31.5 bcm, of which about half goes to Turkey, which does not have its own storage facilities. The pipeline originates from the Russkaya compressor station near Anapa on Russia’s Black Sea coast.
According to ENTSOG data cited by TASS, TurkStream gas deliveries to Europe hit a monthly record of 1.56 bcm in Janu-
ary. In 2024, total transportation via the route increased 23% year on year, reaching 16.7 bcm, with Hungary receiving a record 7.6 bcm of this supply.
Hungary, a key recipient of TurkStream gas, received assur- ances from Brussels on January 27 that the EU would seek to restore Ukraine’s transit of Russian gas, prevent disruptions to Russian oil deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline, and protect the TurkStream infrastructure from attacks.
In return, Budapest agreed to extend EU sectoral sanctions against Russia for another six months beyond January 31. Hungary has consistently opposed efforts to reduce Russian energy imports, citing concerns over its energy security.
Talks are also underway between Baku and Kyiv on the possi- bility of connecting the gas fields in Azerbaijan to Europe via Ukraine’s pipeline network to increase the supplies of gas.
In 2025, Gazprom will export 38 bcm to China, about 25 bcm to Turkey, and 15 bcm to Europe via the TurkStream pipeline across the Black Sea. The 15 bcm that Gazprom has lost due to the suspension of Ukrainian transit would therefore have made up about 16% of this export portfolio: a noticeable but not fundamental volume.
Business attacks Erdogan
bne IntelliNews
Growing frustration among Turkey’s business elite over the state of the country’s economy and the erosion of the rule of law under the Erdogan administration has been reflected in rare rebukes delivered by the most influential Turkish business association at its annual general assembly.
As part of the authorities’ angry response to the February 13 attack, one of the business representatives who spoke out was the next day placed under investigation by Istanbul’s chief prosecutor’s office.
In the years since the crackdown that followed the failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (Tusiad), once viewed as a big voice in Turkish politics, has generally kept its head down, with business leaders fearing repercussions for speaking out. The stinging criticism of the government delivered at the televised event thus came as a shock to
some observers, and encouraged Erdogan’s former economic czar Ali Babacan – nowadays leader of a small opposition party, Democracy and Progress Party (Deva) – to say: “This is
a step in the right direction, but not enough. The business community must raise its voice more forcefully for economic justice, legal security and democratic governance.”
www.bne.eu
Tusiad’s high advisory council president Omer Aras – a top banking executive now under investigation for attempting
to influence a fair trial, manipulating the judiciary and disseminating false information – and chairman Orhan Turan pointed to rising economic and political dangers in Turkey,
as well as increasing government intervention in the private sector, executive control exercised over the judiciary and growing economic hardship.
The message was clear: there is a worsening crisis of trust among investors, the business community and the general public and a fear that more economic mismanagement could do irreparable damage.
Turan, in an address televised by BloombergHT, took direct aim at the government’s economic policies, saying: “Neither industrialists nor workers are happy. Large businesses struggle, and so do small enterprises. Entrepreneurs in both the east and the west are suffering. Who is benefiting from this system?”
“A modern state is founded on the rule of law. If there is no trust in justice, instability and uncertainty will spread,” Turan added before the broadcast was abruptly interrupted as the network went to commercial breaks.