New moves alter energy routes around Turkey
Merve Erdil - ISTANBUL
Russian leader Vladimir Putin picked Turkey to announce the termination of the giant South Stream project that would send gas to energy-hungry southern Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Turkish officials have welcomed Putin’s offer to replace the $40 billion South Stream with a new pipeline to northern Turkey, as it was accompanied by a hot 6 percent cut in gas prices. Turkey currently buys 60 percent of its gas from Russia.
The central Iraqi government in Baghdad, meanwhile, announced on Dec. 2 that a final formal deal was reached with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that could include lucrative Kurdish oil to Turkey’s budget of probable exports or transfer revenues.
The two game-changer moves come at a time when Turkey has looked at transferring gas to Europe with an up to $7 billion pipeline project with Azerbaijan, dubbed TANAP, scheduled for 2018.
The Russian project remains in its infancy, while the sustainability of the Iraqi deal also hangs by a thread, but if both come to fruition, the dual input could change Turkey’s fuel-dependent positioning, if not the energy map of the region.