Energy minister says will ask Russia to lower gas prices
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Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız said on Thursday that the existing natural gas sales contract between Russia and Turkey stipulates that prices can be revised at the start of 2015, and so Turkey will submit a request to Russians to adjust its gas prices downward.
Turkey gets about 42 million cubic meters of natural gas daily from the pipeline in western Ukraine, and in the event of an interruption on this line due to the current political crisis, the amount of gas lost cannot be made up elsewhere. This means that Turkey’s commercial and industrial heartland, the Marmara region and İstanbul in particular, may face a natural gas shortage. The minister, however, added that he didn’t believe there would be a serious problem in gas flow that would shake Turkey.
Prices unlikely to fall
The energy minister commented on the domestic market prices of natural gas, too. There has been tremendous pressure to hike prices, especially due to the social turbulence and chaos in the region, particularly in Iraq, Yılmaz said. He added that domestic market prices are hard to bring down, even if Russia concedes to lowering the price of the natural gas it sell to Turkey. “We are struggling not to transfer the increasing costs to households and industries. If we can get a reduction [from Russia] and pull down our costs, this will be used to decrease the losses of BOTAŞ [the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation],” Yıldız noted.