Hungary in talks with Ankara on receiving LNG from Turkish Terminal
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Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says that commercial negotiations have begun between Hungarian and Turkish companies on volumes of Turkish gas amounts that can be included in the Hungarian market.
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This Jan. 8, 2009 file photo shows a Turkish coast guard boat, left in the foreground, at the port of the BOTAS liquefied natural gas, LNG, import terminal in Marmara Ereglisi, near the city of Tekirdag, western Turkey (AP Photo/Murad Sezer, File)
Hungary has started talks with Turkey on receiving liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a Turkish terminal, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.
"Commercial negotiations have already begun between [Hungarian energy company] MVM and a Turkish state-owned oil and gas company regarding the schedule and volumes of the increasing amounts of Turkish gas that we can include in the Hungarian market," Szijjarto said at a joint press conference with Turkish Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank.
TurkStream remained the only gas pipeline that "works 100 percent, providing supplies between the East and the West," Szijjarto added.
It is worth mentioning that TurkStream is an energy infrastructure project that spans 930 km, starts in Russia, and extends into Turkey, supplying the latter with Russian gas. Despite the EU sanctions imposed in September on TurkStream operator South Stream Transport B.V., which revoked the pipeline's operator of its export license, South Stream Transport issued a statement saying gas transportation would continue uninterrupted.
Moreover, Szijjarto reiterated that the EU should participate in building routes for the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, as it is in the interest of the entire region.
In late September, Szijjarto said that the gas coming to Europe from Azerbaijan will double in the coming years, which will make it the "most realistic opportunity" to diversify the European energy supply. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry said that Budapest was aiming for diversifying gas supplies to the country but found Russian energy resources irreplaceable.
Not only Hungary is to increase imports of Azerbaijani gas, but the country is also interested in increasing LNG supplies through a terminal in Croatia's Krka and developing a gas field in Romania.
After the start of the war in Ukraine and the EU's adoption of several packages of sanctions against Moscow, the bloc has dramatically curbed its imports of Russian gas and started looking for alternatives after pledging to stop depending on energy supplies from the country.
Read: New EU Sanctions on Russia will backfire: Russian Foreign Ministry
