Change of a leader on the Turkish gas market: Azerbaijan overtook Russia
Azerbaijan overtook Russia in terms of gas supplies to Turkey in March this year. According to RIA Novosti, this is evidenced by the report of the Turkish Energy Regulator EPDK.
The document compares the volumes of Turkish gas imports from various countries in March 2019 and this year. Thus, in March last year, Russia’s share in gas exports to Turkey amounted to 32.55 percent (1.398 billion cubic meters), however, the figure fell to 9.89 percent (389.7 million cubic meters) over the same period this year.
In March 2020, Azerbaijan took the leading positions in the export of gas to the neighboring republic with the share 23.45 percent, followed by Qatar (19.95 percent), Iran (14.15 percent) and Algeria (13.69 percent). Thus, Russia ranked fifth among the largest exporters of gas to Turkey in the period under review.
Meanwhile, in the regulator’s previous report, Russia continued to hold first place in the gas sales to Turkey. Thus, in February 2020, the share of Russian gas amounted to 21.14 percent (1.112 billion cubic meters), and Azerbaijan was in the third place (16.34 percent) after the United States (17.71 percent).
Obviously, coronavirus has changed not only people’s lifestyle pattern, but also energy markets. The main change in this area is a significant increase in competition. Gazprom, among other things, has to take into consideration that Azerbaijan and Turkey are the fraternal states. Therefore, with all other conditions being equal, Turkey will prefer to buy gas from Azerbaijan.
