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Russia is willing to consider restarting the Turkish Stream negotiations if Turkey makes the first move, according to Gazprom’s CEO Aleksey Miller.

Mr Miller added that the discussions must take place between Turkey and Russia directly, although he confirmed that no representative from the Turkish government had approached Gazprom directly regarding a solution.

His comments come after Russia suspended negotiations on the highly anticipated Turkish Stream project after a Russian jet was shot down in Syria. Turkey claims that the jet had entered Turkish air space without clearance.

The Turkish Stream project has been underway since December 2014, when Turkey and Russia reached an agreement to build a gas pipeline under the Black Sea with the capacity to transfer 63 billion cubic meters of gas each year. It was decided that 47 billion cubic meters would be delivered to a border crossing (Ipsala) between Turkey and Greece, and the remaining 16 billion cubic meters would be set to two sites in Turkey (Kiyikoy and Luleburgaz).

Under the terms of the original deal, four pipelines would be built by Gazprom in partnership with Turkey’s Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation. However, in October 2015, this was reduced to two pipelines, as the proposed capacity was halved to 32 billion cubic meters. At the time, Mr Miller said that the Nord Stream-2 project would cover the rest of the European gas demand.

Until recently, the joint Russian-Turkish Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation had been responsible for co-ordinating these negotiations, but after the F-16 jet was downed on 24 November 2015, the Kremlin suspended all activities of the Commission and the negotiations came to an end.

Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak confirmed that the Turkish Stream negotiations were suspended in early December.

This development leaves the Turkish Stream project in doubt, as Ankara sources claim that they can get their gas from other sources. Turkey is currently the second largest export market for Russia-based Gazprom, with the majority of this gas being delivered via the Blue Stream and the Trans-Balkan gas pipelines.

In 2014, Turkey received 27.4 billion cubic meters of gas from Gazprom, and the country’s overall gas consumption has more than doubled over the past 10 years.

 

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