Turkmenistan has among the many world’s largest gasoline reserves, however the land-locked nation’s principal buyer is China and exports are restricted by current infrastructure. Ashgabat is perpetually determined for brand new prospects, swaps, and pipelines, as I famous in a chunk for The Diplomat Journal in January, and a not too long ago introduced deal is a giant win.
Turkish Vitality Minister Alparslan Bayraktar stated on X, previously Twitter, {that a} deal has been signed between Turkiye’s state-owned pipeline operator BOTAS and Turkmenistan’s Turkmengaz, to convey Turkmen gas to Turkiye.
The deal, which has been within the works for almost a yr, suffered an obvious setback in September 2024 when BOTAS signed an agreement with France’s TotalEnergies to import 1.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) per yr of LNG from the USA, beginning in 2027. As David O’Byrne wrote for Eurasianet at the time:
Neither Ankara nor Ashgabat have commented on whether or not Turkey’s new LNG provide contracts will have an effect on long-standing plans for Turkey to import gasoline from Turkmenistan. Nevertheless, primary market realities point out that the extra gasoline Ankara imports from different sources, the much less it is going to want Turkmen gasoline to satisfy home demand and export commitments.
In March 2024, Turkmen President Serdar Berdymuhamedov signed a preliminary settlement with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan sketching out a swap deal between Turkmenistan and Turkiye.
“We’ve got a coverage of diversifying routes [for exports],” Berdymuhamedov stated, including that gasoline from Turkmenistan might attain Turkiye and Europe by way of two routes: throughout the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan or by means of Iran.
Pure gasoline, except it’s liquified, is transported by way of pipelines. Turkmenistan and Turkiye don’t share a border and no current pipeline runs immediately between them. However there are pipelines that join Turkmenistan to Iran and pipelines that join Iran to Turkiye. Underneath a swap, gasoline volumes imported from Turkmenistan to Iran could be paired with equal volumes exported from Iran to Turkiye.
“We took a historic step in Türkiye-Turkmenistan power cooperation,” Bayraktar said in a February 11 post. “At present, we now have reached the concrete output of the memorandum of understanding on the event of our cooperation within the subject of pure gasoline, which we signed in Antalya in March 2024…
“Inside the scope of the settlement, gasoline circulate is deliberate to begin on March 1, 2025. With this settlement, which we now have been engaged on for a few years, we are going to strengthen the pure gasoline provide safety of our nation and our area, whereas furthering the strategic cooperation between the 2 international locations,” he concluded.
Though Bayraktar’s assertion didn’t point out Iran, Turkmenistan’s official state paper, Neytralny Turkmenistan (“Impartial Turkmenisytan”), reported a February 10 phone call between Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov – former president, father of the present president, and present chairman of the Folks’s Council (Halk Maslahaty) – and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Chairman Berdymuhamedov, per the report, introduced the BOTAS deal as masking the transit of Turkmen gasoline by means of Iran to Turkiye.
Particular particulars on the quantity, value, and different phrases haven’t been reported.
In July 2024, Bayraktar stated that Turkmenistan might export as a lot as 2 bcm yearly to Turkiye utilizing current infrastructure by way of Azerbaijan and Iran. The following month, Turkiye’s Vitality and Pure Sources Ministry stated that the 2 international locations purpose to have an annual gasoline commerce quantity of 15 billion cubic meters (bcm) within the subsequent 20 years – however would “want a pipeline” to succeed in that quantity.
