ISTANBUL, December 4. /TASS/. Turkey is moving in the right direction regarding the issue of establishing an international gas hub, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said at a meeting with reporters in Istanbul.

"We're working in the right direction. As the volumes of competitive gas coming to Turkey and export capacity around us increase I believe we're automatically creating this gas hub," he said.

"We have a large market, significant capacity, and we can supply between 7 bln and 70-80 bln cubic meters of gas per year to Turkey. <…> We are monitoring the situation and have moved the energy exchange EPIAS to the financial center of Istanbul," the minister noted.

Turkey imports gas via 14 routes, including via pipelines from Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, he added.

In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed creating a hub on Turkish territory to redirect lost transit volumes via the Nord Stream gas pipeline. The Turkish side said earlier that almost everything was ready in terms of infrastructure for the implementation of the hub project. Plans were also announced to open a gas trading center in Istanbul, which will have its own gas index.