Gas imports from Russia down 36 pct

MOSCOW-Reuters

Turkey’s natural gas imports from Russia declined by 36 percent on an annual basis to 8.1 billion cubic meters in the first half of 2019, data published by Russia’s Gazprom has shown.

Turkey’s reliance on Russian supplies fell to 35 percent of its needs from 49 percent.

The country’s gas imports from Iran held almost steady, while imports from Azerbaijan surged 43 percent in the period, after the launch of the second stage of BP’s Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) run by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR last year, data from Turkey’s energy market authority EPDK showed.

Meanwhile, Russian gas exports to nine southeast European nations, including Turkey, fell by more than a quarter in the first half of 2019 as cheaper liquefied natural gas (LNG) and new Azeri supplies helped the region reduce reliance on Russia.

Russian exports to Greece and Bulgaria dropped 12.7 percent and 17.4 percent, respectively.

Low LNG prices, driven down by sluggish spot demand in Asia and rising output particularly in the United States, as well as the expansion of gas output and pipeline capacity from Azerbaijan, helped some regional nations diversify suppliers.

Gazprom’s exports to the nine regional states fell 27% to 14.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) from 19.5 bcm a year earlier, the figures published by the Russian energy giant showed.

Analysts said regional countries were not seeking to squeeze out Gazprom completely in favor of LNG, rather they wanted to reduce their heavy dependence on a single supplier.