ISTANBUL, November 7. /TASS/. It is the high prices that reduced Turkey’s purchases of Russian natural gas, but Ankara does not plan to stop trading with Moscow, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said, according to the Turkiye Today portal.

"It’s not about politics, it’s about price. Russia is very expensive," Bayraktar said. "Due to the extremely high price of gas, there is no other choice but to look for an alternative: either alternative gas pipelines, cheaper and more competitive gas, or alternative fuel."

However, he said that Turkey does not intend to abandon the purchase of Russian gas, warning only that the trend towards replacing it with cheaper alternatives "may continue each year."

Turkey’s gas consumption hit an all-time high in 2025, according to TASS calculations based on data from Turkey’s EPIAS exchange. Gas demand last year approached 64 billion cubic meters (+13% compared to 2024).

According to TASS calculations based on data from Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK), Russia increased pipeline gas supplies to Turkey in 2025 by +0.4% to 21.16 billion cubic meters compared to the previous year. If we also take into account shipments of liquefied natural gas (which did not take place in 2025), the total supplies of Russian gas to Turkey last year decreased by 2%.

According to Turkiye Today, the share of Russian gas in Turkey’s 2024 imports amounted to 64%, and by 2025 it had decreased to 37%. The share of supplies from Azerbaijan in 2025 increased to 22%, and supplies from the United States to 16%.