Azerbaijan's gas export to Turkey up in January-April

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Azerbaijan increased the volume of gas exports to Turkey by 7.8 percent year-on-year in January-April 2021, the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) has reported.

Some 3.9 billion cubic meters of gas was exported to Turkey from Azerbaijan’s largest Shah Deniz field in this period.

According to the report, the volume of Azerbaijani gas supplies to Turkey amounted to 771.2 million cubic meters in April 2021, while the county accounted for 16.32 percent of all gas supplies to Turkey in this month. Thus, Azerbaijan’s gas exports to Turkey in April decreased by 15.86 percent compared to April 2020.

Overall, Azerbaijan moved to the third position in terms of gas supplies to Turkey in April followed by Algeria (7.74 percent). The top gas exporters to Turkey in April was Russia (with 53.09 percent of all supplies), followed by Iran (18.35 percent).

Azerbaijan took the first position in gas supplies to Turkey in March 2020 and retained its leadership until July, and ranked second (after Russia) from August 2020 to March 2021.

As reported, until April 16, 2021, Azerbaijan’s gas supplies to Turkey were carried out under contracts within the framework of Stage-1 and Stage-2 of the development of the Shah Deniz field. However, since April 16, the term of the contract with BOTAS for the sale and purchase of gas at Stage-1 expired and supplies were carried out only under the contract within the framework of Stage-2. At the same time, the Shah Deniz consortium and BOTAS are currently continuing negotiations to conclude a new contract for the export of gas to Turkey within the framework of Stage-1.

In 2020, Azerbaijan exported 11 billion 547.99 million cubic meters of gas from the Shah Deniz field to Turkey (an increase of 20.5%).

The contract for the development of the Shah Deniz field was signed in Baku on June 4, 1996 and ratified by Parliament on October 17 of the same year. The participants of the Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8), Petronas (15.5%), SOCAR (16.7%), LUKOIL (10%), NICO (10%), TPAO (19%).