Türkiye’s natural gas imports in 2022 backtracked from a record in the previous year, according to the country’s energy watchdog, driven in part by a greater power generation from renewable resources that drove the gas consumption downward.

Imports in 2022 fell some 6.9% year-over-year to nearly 54.7 billion cubic meters (bcm), the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) said in a report on the 2022 natural gas market, a year marked by a prolonged global crisis in energy supply and prices that rocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Imports are projected to fall further this year, given that Türkiye in April started pumping gas into the national grid from a vast reserve in the Black Sea, which was discovered gradually in August 2020.

Annual gas consumption had reached a record of nearly 60 bcm in 2021, compared to 48 bcm in 2020, a year overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Consumption last year dropped by 10.58% year-over-year to 53.5 bcm, compared to the over 60 bcm estimate at the beginning of the year, the EPDK report showed.

Most of the 2022 imports, namely 39.49 bcm, came through pipelines, while around 15.17 billion was imported in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the data showed.

Türkiye is the 5th largest natural gas market in Europe with about 20 million subscribers and an average annual consumption of about 55 bcm.

Despite the record prices on European natural gas exchanges during the peak days of the energy supply crisis, Türkiye’s residential, commercial and industrial gas users were least affected thanks to the advantages stemming from large investments in natural gas infrastructure facilities and spot natural gas imports, the report cited EPDK Chairperson Mustafa Yılmaz as saying.

Some 21.57 bcm, or 39.47%, of gas imported last year came from Russia, according to the report, while the rest came from Iran (9.4 bcm), Azerbaijan (8.7 bcm), the U.S. (5.6 bcm) and Algeria (5.3 bcm).

The report said Türkiye’s gas exports jumped by 51.8% to 581.43 million cubic meters. Almost half of that, namely 254.86 million cubic meters, was shipped to Bulgaria, followed by Greece at 228.29 million and Switzerland at 98.23 million.

Annual gas production decreased 3.7% year-over-year to 379.81 million cubic meters, the data showed.

Türkiye in April launched the production from the Black Sea reserve, estimated to hold over 710 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas and projected to be worth around half a billion dollars, promising to curb the country's external dependence and cut consumer energy prices.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said 25 cubic meters of natural gas, used in kitchens and for hot water, would be provided to households free of charge for one year from May.

Yılmaz said both the increase in transaction volume that will occur as a result of the gas purchased through spot pipeline gas imports being sold on the organized market and the variety of supply that will be provided by the Black Sea gas field into the market "will also serve our goal of becoming a natural gas trading center."