Preparations for Russian gas hub project in Turkey on the way: Erdogan

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
4 Dec 2022 22:21
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that his country is preparing for the Russian gas hub project in the country proposed earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin that will move Russian gas to EU.

Illustration of gas pipeline between Russia and Turkey (Shutterstock).

In a meeting with Turkish youth in Sanliurfa city southeast of the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Ankara is carrying out preparations to establish the gas hub project suggested earlier by Moscow.

"As you know, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin put forward a gas hub project in Turkey to redistribute gas to Europe. We are now making preparations for this," Erdogan said, noting that projects related to natural gas are not bound to wells in the Black and Mediterranean seas.

On October 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow could redirect gas transit from the Nord Stream pipelines, damaged by an explosion classified by Russia as an act of terrorism, to Turkey. Unprecedented damage was dealt to three out of four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Donmez stated then that Turkey and Russia have come to an agreement over creating a gas hub that will link the two through Europe, and Ankara has already started on its part of the work.

On October 14, Erdogan said the two leaders instructed relevant institutions of the two countries to quickly begin work on the idea of creating a hub in Turkey for gas supplies to Europe.

The pipeline of the hub starts on the Russian coast, runs over 930 km through the Black Sea, and comes ashore in the Thrace region of Turkey.

It directly connects the largest gas reserves in Russia to the Turkish gas transportation network, providing reliable energy to Turkey, and South and Southeast Europe.

Russian oil via Turkey

In a report by the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) earlier in November, Turkey has emerged as a new route for Russian oil supplies to the EU, after Moscow's income from fossil fuel exports plummeted to their lowest levels since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Ankara has doubled its imports of Russian crude since the Ukraine war began in late February. The oil is subsequently processed in Turkey, where shipments of refined oil products to the EU and the US increased by 85 percent between July and August, according to CREA.

"Turkish refiners are therefore providing an outlet for Russia's oil exports, by refining products for markets that are either not willing to import Russian crude oil directly or don't have the refining capacity to process it," it said.

CREA has also stressed that "as the EU bans crude oil imports from Russia on 5 December, this loophole could become important."