Azerbaijan has plugged the gap in natural gas supplies following the halt in gas flow from Iran, with additional supplies of 4 million to 5 million cubic meters (mcm) per day to Turkey from February onward, Fatih Dönmez, the minister of Energy and Natural Resources, announced on Wednesday.
Azerbaijan had been supplying 7 mcm of gas per day but added the extra reserves as gas supplies from Iran are not yet at the expected level, Dönmez explained.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report also said in a report Wednesday that Azerbaijan has started exporting 170 mcm of "emergency gas" to Turkey.
The report said that the gas supply is around 5 mcm per day, started in the last week of January and will continue until the end of February.
Turkey is the largest buyer of Azerbaijani gas with 8.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2021.
After Iran, one of Turkey's three biggest natural gas suppliers, reported a technical malfunction in January and cutoff gas flow to the country for 10 days, state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) decided to reduce the gas flow to natural gas power plants and large-scale consumers.
The curbs on gas usage, which were reduced to 20% in late January from a previous 40% and caused countrywide industrial sites to pause operations, were lifted as of Feb. 8.
Sector sources said last week repairs on the pipeline from the Iranian side of the border had been postponed until the spring.
Turkey is almost fully dependent on imported gas from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.
Turkey currently imports 44 mcm of gas per day via the TurkStream pipeline, 47 mcm per day via Blue Stream from Russia and the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) transmits 17.3 mcm of gas at full capacity per day from Azerbaijan.
The country’s storage facilities also play a major role in ensuring sufficient gas supplies. The Lake Tuz underground Natural Gas Storage Facility currently transmits 30 mcm of gas per day to the grid, while the Silivri Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility transmits 15 mcm of gas per day.
Turkey also receives 38 mcm of gas per day from the Egegaz Aliağa Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal, 35 mcm daily from the Marmara Ereğlisi LNG terminal, 20 mcm daily from the Ertuğrul Gazi Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) facility and 25 mcm of gas per day from the Aktif Liman FSRU facility.
Thus, in total, Turkey has an average daily natural gas input capacity of over 280 mcm.