Turkey's Gas Imports Fall Year on Year
Turkey's gas imports over the first three quarters of the year fell to 35.9bn m³, down 9.49% on the same period in 2017, data released December 3 by Turkey's energy regulator EPDK show. Demand over the first nine months was reported as 35.73bn m³, which was down 7.33% on the year.
Imports for September were reported as 3.281bn m³, 10.85% less than in September 2017, with demand for the month at 3.31bn m³, down 3.14%, and the volume of gas held in storage as 3.23bn m³, up 2.75% on the same basis.
The fall in demand and imports follows sustained pressure from the Turkish government to reduce the country's gas consumption in order to address the country's sizeable trade deficit, one of the factors which contributed to the sharp drop in the value of the Turkish lira over the summer.
The pressure included a 49.5% hike in the price charged by Turkish state gas importer Botas for gas sold to power generators, imposed at the start of August. According to EPDK, power generators used 7.48% less gas in September compared with the same month in 2017.
Speaking to NGW last month, an official from one major combined cycle (CCGT) power plant operator predicted that lower-than-normal gas burning would continue until the onset of colder winter weather, which much of Turkey has been experiencing for the past couple of weeks. Turkey's gas distributors' association Gazbir announced in late October that it expected Turkey's demand to fall by 3.7% in 2018, from around 54bn m³ to around 52bn m³.
The EPDK data for September indicated that Turkey is continuing to import more from Azerbaijan, following the commissioning in July of the TransAnatolian Pipeline (Tanap) which is slated to supply 2bn m³ during its first year of operation. September imports from Azerbaijan were reported as 0.749bn m³, up 29.2% on the year.
In contrast, imports from Turkey's main supplier Russia were reported as 1.718bn m³, down 19.1% on the year; and imports from Turkey's other pipeline supplier, Iran were reported as 0.494bn m³, down 6.93% on the year.
September LNG imports were reported from Algeria and Nigeria, both of which hold long term supply contracts with Turkey's state gas importer Botas. Algeria supplied 0244bn m³, down 31.5% on the year; with Nigeria supplying a single cargo of 0.077 bn m³, compared with none in September 2017. There were no reported spot cargoes.
Imports by six of the seven private companies which buy small quantities of Russian gas under contracts totalling 10bn m³/yr were reported to have risen, while state gas importer Botas took 9.5% less year on year, at 2.695bn m³ in September 2018. Of the six, the largest rise was reported by Kibar Enerji, which imported 0.115bn m³, up 150% year on year. Imports by Enerco Gaz were reported as 0.174bn m³, up 26%, with imports by Akfel Gaz of 0.17bn m³, up 9.2%, with imports by the other three of under 0.1bn m³, up by between 25-50%.
The seventh private company with a Gazprom contract, Bosphorus Gaz was reported as having imported no gas in September.
The rise in imports by six of the seven private importers follows several months of rumours that all seven private importers were facing problems meeting their take or pay commitments having been unable to compete with Botas which was selling gas at below cost ahead of the Turkish general election last June. Industry insiders informed NGW early last month that Botas was believed to have started buying gas from the seven, with the aim of preventing them from going bankrupt.
More recently, the same sources have suggested that Gazprom has "re-activated" its controlling stake in one of the seven - Bosphorus Gaz - and was attempting to have the other six private importers transfer their contracts to Bosphorus Gaz, with the longer term aim of transferring all the private contracts to state importer Botas to make good any remaining take-or-pay overhang. However, to date no official announcement about this has been made.
It was announced October 2 that Russian Gazprom had sold its 71% stake in Bosphorus Gaz to the local Sen Group, with the weak Turkish lira being cited.