Progress on the gas hub project in Turkey can be achieved within a few months. This was said by Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar at the plenary session of the International Gas Forum in St. Petersburg.
„We are collaborating with other players on this project. And in the coming months it will be possible to announce the progress achieved in this matter in the implementation of the project. They will create additional opportunities for both suppliers and consumers with the help of a gas hub in Turkey”, he said.
Turkey is ready to receive both gas supplies from various countries through pipelines and liquefied natural gas, and the country is also investing in its own gas production in the Black Sea. According to him, in the next two years Turkey will reach a gas output of 7.5 billion cubic meters and plans to triple these volumes.
The head of the Turkish Ministry of Energy recalled that the country receives gas from Russia through pipelines in the amount of about 31 billion cubic meters, from Azerbaijan - about 10-11 billion cubic meters. “In addition, we can use our regasification terminals where we can have another 25 billion cubic meters of gas to receive from Qatar, Algeria, Russia and other LNG producers, Bayraktar added. - Own consumption is 50 billion cubic meters, but, of course, it is increasing. However, we have excess amounts of gas that can be exported to other countries."
In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the idea of creating a hub on Turkish territory, where the lost volume of transit through the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline would be redirected. Turkish officials say that in terms of infrastructure in the country, almost everything is ready for the project. At the end of December 2023, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that the implementation of the project to create a hub could begin in 2024. The head of the Turkish Ministry of Energy, for his part, talked about plans to create a center in Istanbul as part of a project for a hub with the participation of Turkey's Botaş and Russia's "Gazprom".