Turkey’s Energy Dependence on Russia
Before examining the issue of the Turkish Stream pipeline I would like to examine in more detail Turkey's dependence on Russian natural gas. As you can read at the following Al Monitor article, titled 'What will Turkey do if Russia turns off gas', September 2014, Turkey imports 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas every year, 26 of which are imported from Russia. The Russian natural gas reaches Turkey through the Black Sea and through Ukraine.
The Blue Stream pipeline connects Russia and Turkey through the Black Sea. The Blue Stream can send to Turkey 16 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas every year. The Trans-Balkan pipeline connects Russia and Turkey via Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria, sending another 16 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to Turkey every year. For the Blue Stream pipeline and the Russia-Ukraine-Moldova— Rumania-Bulgaria-Turkey pipeline see the blue and red lines at the following map.
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Please note that the Trans-Balkan natural gas pipeline should not be confused with the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, which is sometimes referred to as Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. For the Trans-Balkan natural gas pipeline see the following article of the Energy Information Administration, titled '16% of natural gas consumed in Europe flows through Ukraine', March 2014, which includes the following map.
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http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=15411
The crises in the Russian-Ukrainian relations do not pose a threat for the natural gas supplies that reach Turkey through the Black Sea and the Blue Stream, but they pose a great threat for the supplies that reach Turkey through Ukraine. The main reason for the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine is that the Ukrainians have a lot of bargaining power over Russia, because a large part of the Russian natural gas travels through Ukraine before it reaches its final destination. Therefore the Ukrainians always ask for better prices from the Russians and this causes a lot of tensions in the Russian-Ukrainian relations.
In the past, during the Russian-Ukrainian crises, the Russians have turned off the supply of natural gas to Ukraine, and this has left many other European countries without natural gas. Turkey was one of these countries. As you can read at the Al Monitor article that I mentioned above, the Russian-Ukrainian crises are a very big problem for Turkey, because Turkey does not have an internal network which can transfer natural gas from Central Turkey to Western Turkey.
But even if there was such a network, connecting Ankara to the European part of Turkey, the Blue Stream would not have the capacity to do the job. The Blue Stream has an annual capacity of 16 billion cubic meters and that's not enough for Turkey. Russia has promised Turkey to increase the annual capacity of the Blue Stream by 2-3 billion cubic meters per year, but this has not happened yet.
The South Stream and the Turk Stream pipelines would eliminate Turkey's dependence on Ukraine, given that both of them bypass Ukraine. Both of them were supposed to carry 63 billion cubic meters, which is a lot more than the 15-20 billion cubic meters required by the western part of Turkey.
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The above map shows Turkey's geographical regions. You can see on the map the region of Marmara, which imports Russian natural gas from Ukraine, and which is very sensitive to crises between Russia and Ukraine. Central and Eastern Anatolia are more secure because they import Russian natural gas through the Blue Stream, and they are also near Azerbaijan, Northern Iraq and Iran, which are countries very rich in oil and natural gas reserves.
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I suggest that you read the whole Al Monitor article. It is a very good article.
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Before we answer the question, let‘s see how much gas Turkey imports from Russia. Last year, Turkey imported a total of 45 billion cubic meters (1.6 trillion cubic feet) of gas, including 26.6 billion cubic meters (939 billion cubic feet) from Russia. Two gas conduits carry gas from Russia to Turkey: the Blue Stream, which runs under the Black Sea to the Turkish port city of Samsun and has an annual capacity of 16 billion cubic meters (565 billion cubic feet), and the Western pipeline, which reaches Turkey via Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, has a capacity of 14 billion cubic meters (494 billion cubic feet) and is vital for Istanbul.
The crisis between Russia and Ukraine poses no risk to the Blue Stream, but may affect the Western pipeline. Russia has already cut gas supplies for Ukraine over its $5.15 billion gas debt.
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But if Russia shuts down the pipeline, Istanbul and the Marmara region would face disaster, for no conduit exists inside Turkey to reroute gas coming from eastern suppliers to the northwest of the country. In other words, Turkey lacks the means to send Azeri and Iranian gas to the Marmara region, where both residential buildings and industrial facilities are supplied via Ukraine by the Western pipeline, which last year carried 10 billion cubic meters of gas to the region.
The only remaining option would be to use liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, Turkey lacks the capacity to process large amounts of LNG and would have to increase the number of entry points and facilities. Currently, Turkey has only two plants to gasify LNG and pump it to the gas network" one in Silivri, near Istanbul, and another at Aliaga, on the country‘s western coast.
Turkey faces another major problem: It is able to store only 5% of the gas it consumes, the lowest storage capacity in Europe. That‘s the reason why Turkey is seen as the country most vulnerable to a possible cut in supplies. Hungary, Austria and Slovakia, for instance, have a storage capacity of 50%, while France, Germany and Italy are able to store more than 20% of what they consume.
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Now, back to what precautions Turkey is taking against the worst-case scenario. First, it is securing alternative supplies. Last week, it sealed a deal with Qatar for 1.2 billion cubic meters (42 billion cubic feet) of LNG, in addition to plans to increase LNG imports from Nigeria and Algeria. The available storage facilities have been filled as a contingency measure for the winter.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/turkey-russia-ukraine-european- union-natural-gas-tanap.html