Turkish Stream to start gas supplies in December 2016
On May 7, 2015, Ankara hosted a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Taner Yildiz, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of the Turkish Republic.
Alexey Miller and Taner Yildiz addressed the issues of Russian gas supplies to Turkey, upgrade of the Blue Stream gas pipeline and execution of the project for a new gas pipeline construction from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea.
It was noted that the recent data showed a 5.4 billion cubic meters of gas volume conveyed by the Blue Stream from Russia to Turkey over the first four months of 2015. This is a 4 per cent increase against the same period of 2014. The meeting highlighted that in the last 10 years gas consumption in Turkey had more than doubled and the Turkish market was interested in further boosting the gas export from Russia.
“We had very efficient and crucial talks today. It was agreed to bring onstream Turkish Stream and to start gas supplies in December 2016. Gazprom, while implementing its portion of work under the Turkish Stream project, will follow the agreements reached today,” said Alexey Miller.
Turkey is Gazprom’s second largest sales market behind Germany. In 2014 Gazprom supplied Turkey with 27.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Turkey currently receives Russian natural gas via the Blue Stream and the Trans-Balkan gas pipelines.
Running under the Black Sea, the Blue Stream gas pipeline secures annual direct supplies of some 16 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to Turkish consumers.
On December 1, 2014 Gazprom and Turkish company Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation signed the Memorandum of Understanding on constructing a gas pipeline with an annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas to be supplied from Russia to Turkey under the Black Sea. The 1,100 kilometer gas pipeline will convey a total of 47 billion cubic meters of gas to the Turkish-Greek border.
