ANKARA, April 18. /TASS/. Turkey will be able to sell up to 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year at the site of the international gas hub, which is being created now, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Domnez said in an interview with the NTV channel.
"Of the about 100 billion cubic meters of gas we receive, we use about 60 billion. So, we can sell the remaining 40 billion. For this purpose, a gas trading center is being created. We were supported by suppliers - Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, countries supplying liquefied gas. But this is a market, and without buyers, the hub does not make sense," the minister said, noting that Turkey is already negotiating with potential buyers in Europe.
"We plan to make our neighboring region a sales market for this gas. These are the Balkans, Europe. We recently started shipping liquefied gas to Bulgaria, which initially supported the hub idea. We spoke with Macedonia, they said that they could buy gas through Turkey. Romania has been quite positive about getting gas through us. Negotiations are ongoing," Donmez said.
Speaking at the Russian Energy Week forum in October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed creating the largest gas hub in Europe in Turkey and redirecting the volume of gas, the transit of which is no longer possible through the Nord Stream, to this hub. According to him, this may mean building another gas pipeline system and creating a hub in Turkey, through which gas will be supplied to third countries, primarily European ones, if they are interested. Ankara welcomed this initiative and stated that a significant part of the infrastructure for creating a hub and a gas trading center in Istanbul was ready. Ankara also began the process of making legislative changes to provide a legal base for the operation of the hub.