Gas industry of Türkiye
Summary
Turkish gas market has a high seasonality. During the cold season, gas consumption increases dramatically.
Türkiye has both piped gas and LNG import and reexport some of volumes further.
Türkiye is seeking to create a gas hub on its territory, but can’t fulffilled its idea as of now.
Pipeline gas imports
Russia
Russia is key supplier of natural gas to Türkiye. Russia supplies pipeline gas to Türkiye through two main gas pipelines, Blue Stream and Turkish Stream.
Part of the gas received through the Turkish Stream is further supplied to EU, while Russia retains ownership of this gas.
Turkish route is the only surviving way to supply Russian gas to EU.
On 11.01.2021 and 09.04.2025, the Russian and Korenovskaya compressor stations serving gas transportation via the Turkish Stream were attacked by unmanned aerial of Ukraine and the EU. After Türkiye’s diplomatic intervention, repeated attacks were avoided.
Azerbaijan and Georgia
Azerbaijan is one of the key suppliers of pipeline gas to Turkey. At the same time, Azerbaijan supplies significant volumes of its gas in transit through Georgia and Turkey to the EU, remaining its owner.
Iran
In March 2025, Türkiye, Turkmenistan and Iran signed a geographical gas swap deal. Turkmenistan supplied gas to northeastern Iran, and Iran, in turn, supplied gas to Türkiye via the Iran-Türkiye gas pipeline. The deal’s volume is 1.3 billion cubic meters per year. The term of the transaction is 1 year. Gas reciever at Turkish side is BOTAŞ.
Domestic market
Gas hub
Idea of creating a gas hub in Türkiye has not been fullfiled due to the completely opposite visions of Turkey and gas suppliers (including Russia) on profit sharing. Türkiye’s position is that almost all the difference between the cheap price of natural gas in the supplier countries and the expensive price of gas in the EU, minus the direct costs of gas transportation, should stay in Türkiye. Obsiosly, gas suppliers to Türkiye disagree with this.
Export of pipeline gas
Greece-Bulgaria
The volume of Russian gas supplies to EU via Türkiye in 2025 is at the level of 41 million cubic meters per day.
Transit supplies of Azerbaijani gas are also going in this direction.
Syria
By June 2025, Türkiye had built an export pipeline to Syria. The border point of gas supply is Yavuzlu/7000. The pipeline's capacity is 6 million cubic meters per day.
LNG imports
Regasification terminals
Türkiye is increasing its LNG regasification capacity.
There are no terminals on the Black Sea coast of Türkiye due to the ban on LNG gas carriers passing through the Bosphorus. A potential explosion of a gas carrier during the passage of this strait is capable of destroying a significant part of the center of Istanbul. This also explains the lack of regasification terminals in Ukraine and other Black Sea countries.
In June-November 2025, Ertugrul Gazi will be leased from Türkiye for a short-term lease. This is an interesting attempt to use a single FSRU to meet peak demand at different times: the heat period in June-September in Egypt, the heating period in December-February in Turkey.