Erdogan and Putin agree to build major gas hub in Turkey

A week ago, Russian President Putin made a surprise proposal to build a gas hub in Turkey. Turkish President Recep Erdogan accepted the proposal, of course. It is assumed that Russia and Turkey will thus move the gas supply route to Europe from the Nord Stream systems in the Baltic region to the Black Sea region via Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in parliament, said that he had agreed with Vladimir Putin on the creation of the gas hub in Turkey, Anadolu news agency said.

"Europe will be able to receive its gas from Turkey," Erdogan said with reference to Putin's remarks. The Turkish President, speaking in Parliament, noted that Europe was looking for sources of natural gas. "Fortunately, we do not have such a problem, and we are not facing it in the future either," Erdogan said.

On October 12, Russian President Putin announced the idea of ​​creating "the largest gas hub for Europe" in Turkey. Turkey's Energy Minister Fatih Donmez then said that it was the first time when he heard about such plans. A day later Erdogan said that the parties instructed the relevant departments to start working on this issue. The Turkish president said that Thrace would be a suitable place for such a platform.

According to Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, the company is ready to build the necessary gas transmission facilities. The work to restore the damaged Nord Stream pipelines will take a long time, so the issue of moving supplies to the Black Sea region deems relevant.

Russia supplies gas to Turkey via two gas pipelines that run along the bottom of the Black Sea. The Blue Stream (16 billion cubic meters per year) supplies gas only to the Turkish market, and half of the capacities of the Turkish Stream (15.75 billion out of 31.5 billion cubic meters) are used to supply gas to the countries of Southern and Southeastern Europe.

Europe found itself amidst a major energy crisis as a result of a great deal of sanctions that the European Union imposed on Russia. In late September, the Nord Stream pipelines were exploded. The blasts made further supplies of gas from Russia to Europe impossible.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the supplies of Russian fuel to European countries have collapsed by 80 percent compared to last year.