Page 106 - Russia OUTLOOK 2024

EU members that are trying to wean themselves off their Russian dependency. Many EU members have pledged to stop importing Russian supplies altogether over the coming years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed establishing Turkey as a hub for delivering gas supplies to the EU in October, after explosions destroyed three of the four strands of the Nord Stream gas pipelines that run under the Baltic Sea on September 26, 2022.
Russia has proposed adding two more strings to TurkStream, in order to double its capacity to around 60 bcm per year. The Turkish market itself is already saturated but Turkey enjoys not only access to Azeri and Iranian piped gas, but also LNG.
Turkey could in theory feed all of Europe with Russian, Azerbaijani and Iranian gas entering the European pipeline system from the south-east of the continent.
Still in the early stages, eventually the Turkish hub could transit up to 100 bcm of Russian gas to Europe a year – about two thirds of what Russia used to sell to Europe.
Turkish national gas company Botas is already signing gas supply deals with countries around Europe, without having any significant production of its own.
In its most recent deal, Turkey agreed to take over the supply of almost half of Moldova’s gas needs, which has been breaking away from dependence on Russian pipeline supplies, at the end of September.
The gas will be imported via pipelines running through Romania and Bulgaria, rather than from Russia and Ukraine, and most of it will be directed to Moldova’s largest power and heat generating plant located in the Russian-controlled breakaway region of Transnistria, according to the Turkish national champion. Botas will supply Moldova with 2mn cubic metres of natural gas per day, starting on October 1, 2023. The gas will come via the Romanian and Bulgarian pipelines, which are supplied with the majority of their gas by the TurkStream gas pipeline that is in turn supplied by Russia.
An EU gas deal with Azerbaijan last year has led to increased Russian gas exports to the country. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen personally travelled to Baku in July 2022 to sign a deal that doubles Azerbaijan’s gas deliveries to Europe to 20 bcm per year of Azeri gas by 2027. Doing so would require further upstream development in the Caspian Sea, and the expansion of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) pipeline network that runs through Turkey to Southern Europe.
While Azerbaijan is a net exporter of gas, it also struggles with a domestic gas supply squeeze. Gazprom announced in November it was restarting gas exports to Azerbaijan to help cover the shortfall.
Gazprom was a supplier of gas to Azerbaijan between 2000 and 2006, but then the country rapidly expanded its own gas production at the BP-operated
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