Havva Gümüşkaya
While the government’s “domestic and national energy” vision remains just words, energy policy is being shaped by imports from across the Atlantic. At the Erdoğan-Trump summit, an agreement was reached between BOTAŞ and the US company Mercuria for the supply of LNG equivalent to approximately 4 billion cubic metres per year, totalling 70 billion cubic metres over 20 years. Under the agreement, natural gas will be imported from the US, mainly during the winter months.
Covering the period 2026-2045, the agreement allows BOTAŞ to purchase LNG from US loading ports and gasification terminals in Turkey, Europe and North Africa. In addition, a long-term preliminary agreement was signed between the US company Woodside and BOTAŞ. The agreement states that the parties have reached a preliminary agreement on the supply of approximately 5.8 billion cubic metres of LNG to BOTAŞ over a period of nine years starting in 2030, mostly from the Louisiana LNG Project.
According to a report published in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the total cost of the 20-year agreement will be $43 billion. Energy Minister Alpaslan Bayraktar’s statement regarding the agreement, ‘We believe it will help BOTAŞ gain an important position on the global LNG stage,’ confirms Turkey’s new role as an “energy region” and “distribution centre”.
IMPOSSIBLE TO GIVE UP
The energy agreements made while Trump was instructing European countries to ‘stop buying energy from Russia’ were seen as new concessions to the US.
Turkey imports natural gas through five pipelines under bilateral agreements. These are the Blue Stream and TurkStream from Russia, the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline from Iran, the BTE/South Caucasus Pipeline from Azerbaijan, and the Turkish section of the pipeline transporting Azerbaijani gas to Europe, known as TANAP. In particular, the 48–50 million cubic metres of gas arriving directly to Ankara via the Blue Stream pipeline is vital for supplying cities during the winter period. It does not appear possible to meet this capacity from LNG terminals in the Marmara, Aegean and Mediterranean. LNG arrives by sea in long-term and spot cargoes. In recent years, the United States, along with Algeria, Nigeria, Qatar and Egypt, have been among Turkey’s leading LNG suppliers.
5 PERCENT OF SUPPLY IS LNG
Source diversification is increasing due to US-centred LNG agreements in natural gas. However, LNG is relatively expensive and volatile, meaning that in the short term it can only replace pipeline gas at a higher cost.
According to Gaz-Bir’s sector assessment report for 2024, pipeline gas supplied 75% of 909 settlements across the country, CNG (compressed natural gas) supplied 20%, and LNG supplied 5%. Furthermore, 133 settlements that were previously supplied with CNG and LNG switched to pipeline gas. The population supplied with natural gas via LNG was recorded as only 1.1 million.
According to EPDK data, LNG storage capacity was increased during the summer months. In June, 3.5 billion cubic metres of gas were stored in underground storage facilities and 279.96 million cubic metres in LNG terminals. The total storage volume exceeded 3.77 billion cubic metres, indicating preparations for winter.
Meanwhile, total natural gas imports in June amounted to 3.168 billion cubic metres, of which 377.6 million cubic metres came from LNG. Thus, LNG accounted for 11.9 per cent of imports. In the first six months of the year, 9.48 billion cubic metres of the total 29.6 billion cubic metres of imports came from LNG, increasing its share to 32%.
DOMESTIC GAS IS NOT PROGRESSING
The current status of the Black Sea gas venture, which has been ongoing since 2020, falls far short of what was promised. Instead of Black Sea gas, which was presented with the propaganda that it would reduce dependence on foreign energy and cost billions of lira, and which was said to meet the entire natural gas needs of households by 2028, US gas will come.
Although gas extraction activities, which began without sufficient drilling studies, were criticised, the gas was put into operation in April 2023. However, the first gas entered the system in September 2023. The Court of Accounts’ 2023 report determined that cash expenditures totalling 89 billion 581 million 682 thousand TL were made for the Black Sea gas project from its inception until the end of 2023. It was noted that the project’s cost for the 2020-2025 period was 216 billion 326 million 421 thousand TL. Between 2021 and 2023, 5 billion 978 million TL was calculated for the procurement and development of drilling ships.
It was announced that daily gas production would be 10 million cubic metres in the first phase, reaching 40 million cubic metres in Phase 2 and 60 million cubic metres in Phase 3. However, initial production activities at the site began in September 2023 at an average of 2.49 million cubic metres per day and 74.714 million cubic metres per month, falling short of the target.
According to Minister Bayraktar’s statements, the target was to increase production to 10 million cubic metres in the first quarter of 2025. While daily production fluctuated, according to the latest data from the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA), an average of 8.19 million cubic metres per day and 245.825 million cubic metres per month of gas was produced in June.
During the January-June period, the average monthly natural gas production was 227.317 million cubic metres, while the average daily production remained at 7.57 million cubic metres.
According to Bayraktar’s plans, by the third quarter of 2026, 20 million cubic metres of gas will be produced daily from the field, and by 2028, daily production is expected to reach 40 million cubic metres, with the aim of meeting the natural gas needs of all households from the Sakarya Gas Field. However, production is still far below the expected level.
While the expected production targets for domestic gas cannot be met, long-term LNG agreements with the US are pushing the country into a new dependence on external sources.
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A PRE-LOADED INCREASE HAD BEEN MADE
Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced in July that they were not considering increasing electricity and natural gas prices as winter approached, despite a 24.6 per cent increase in natural gas prices for households. Bayraktar stated that the subsidies applied to natural gas imposed a burden of approximately 590-600 billion lira on the Treasury, adding, “We are perhaps providing the gas we purchase to citizens at half price. There is no harm in providing this support to those in need, those with low incomes, and those with fixed incomes.
We say that the state should not pay for those who do not need it, those who are unaware of how much their bill will be at the end of the month.
While natural gas was provided free of charge to all residential consumers in April 2023, residential consumers’ monthly consumption of 25 m3 of gas was not billed and was provided free of charge until the end of May 2024. This ensured that the CPI rates for the first six months of the year were low and suppressed CPI-indexed wage increases. However, subsequent price increases exceeded the rise in the CPI. With the 24.6% increase implemented in July, natural gas prices have risen by 149% since March 2024.
Even without a price increase, the average natural gas bill would amount to 1,370 lira.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Yerli gaz out, ABD gazı in, published in BirGün newspaper on October 2, 2025.
