The plans of Turkey to start buying LNG from the US

Alexey Belogoryev, Deputy Principal Director on Energy Studies of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Rambler portal about a possible increase in American LNG supplies to Turkey and its competition with Russian pipeline gas.

Turkey has a fairly diversified gas balance, in which Russian, Azeri, Iranian, and LNG supplies play a significant role. At the same time, Turkey is among the few European countries that have large excess capacity for receiving LNG. In addition, the country has a high growth rate of LNG consumption. In 2020, Turkey's LNG consumption growth rate was the highest in the world. In 2021, consumption there has decreased, but still remains quite large - about 10 million tons of LNG per year.

Turkey can use free capacities for receiving LNG for diversified gas supplies, for example, to the EU countries. For 2021, the loading of Turkish LNG terminals was about 40% of their capacity. Accordingly, if these capacities are fully loaded, then theoretically Turkey could supply to other countries - primarily to the EU countries - about 10 billion cubic meters on an annualized basis, which is a fairly large value.

But I would not say that there is any competition between American LNG and Russian pipeline gas. Turkey does not seek to increase its dependence on any one source. It purposefully pursues a policy of diversification. In addition, it plans from next year a fairly large volume of its own production through the development of deposits in the Black Sea.