Turkish Stream, via which Gasprom was going to export up to 35 billion cub.m. of gas a year to Turkey, could be frozen, because of the shot down Su-24 plane, said Russian Minister of Economic Development Aleksei Ulyukayev. The talks on the gas pipeline construction took almost a year.
“The project is no different, than any other project, but it also involves our investment cooperation,” Ulyukayev told journalists.
In October 2015Turkey threatened Russia to refuse buying Russian gas. This happened after the Russian military planes intruded into the air space of the country. Turkish President Rajip Tayyip Erdogan said then that Turkey will be a “serious” loss for Russia, because Ankara is number one buyer of Russian natural gas.
Turkey and Russia established cooperation in the gas industry in 1997 and concluded an intergovernmental agreement, within the framework of which Gasprom has concluded a contract with Turkish Botas to export 365 billion cub.m. of gas via the Blue Stream gas pipeline within 25 years.
According to Gasprom Export, in 2014 Turkey bought 27.33 billion cub.m. of gas from Russia (56% of Turkish gas import), which constituted 18% of the entire gas export of Russia.
The contract on the Turkish Stream construction was achieved a year ago on December 1, 2015 during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Ankara. Over 250 billion rubles have been already spent for construction of the gas pipeline, which was first intended to export gas from Russia to Europe via the South Stream and then via the Turkish Stream.
A possible alternative scenario in case of complete failure of the talks on Turkish Stream could be increase in Gasprom’s capacities on the north. Cost of the North Stream-2 gas pipeline must not exceed 9.9 billion Euro.
