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(Bloomberg) -- Turkey has turned to liquefied natural gas imports to help meet peak winter demand as regional pipeline flows decline.
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The nation’s state-run gas importer Botas has purchased seven LNG shipments for delivery from the end of January through March in a tender this week and is seeking another cargo for February, according to traders with knowledge of the matter. The purchases are driven in part by a reduction in piped supplies from Azerbaijan, they said.
Azerbaijan’s gas exports from the massive BP Plc-led Shah Deniz project fell after a technical issue in a subsea condensate pipeline last week led to the shutdown of Alpha, one of the two producing platforms at the field. The project supplies Turkey, Georgia and Europe.
Flows via one of the two entry points from Azerbaijan to Turkey’s grid are at zero, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Apart from bringing Azerbaijani gas to Europe, Turkey is also the last remaining route for Russian gas to get to the region and is seen as a possible conduit to ramp up that supply. Its rising LNG imports raise the risk of supply tightness as they come when the continent is increasingly dependent on the fuel to fill the gaps left by the halt of Russian pipeline gas flows via Ukraine.
Egypt also remains a contender for the super-chilled fuel in the winter.
The dip in piped gas from Azerbaijan comes at a time when Iran, which often cuts exports in winter, is supplying only half of its contracted delivery volumes to Turkey. Russian gas supply via TurkStream is also being closely watched after the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Monday that the pipeline across the Black Sea was a target of a Ukrainian drone attack. The link is operating as normal currently.
In late December, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the country’s gas supply for winter was secure.
Work to resume operations at the Alpha platform continued on Friday, Tamam Bayatli, a spokesperson for BP’s Baku office, said by phone. She gave no timeline for the resumption of production and exports. Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company Socar didn’t respond to requests for comments.
The halt has been extended until Jan. 19, according to Azerbaijan Gas Supply Co., which estimated that flows to Europe will be reduced by 8.5 million cubic meters a day.