Turkish companies have accumulated a debt of about $ 2 billion for gas supplies before Russian “Gazprom” and refuse to pay, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Seven private Turkish companies earlier in exchange for discounts has made a commitment to buy large volumes of gas from “Gazprom” under long-term contracts “take or pay”. But because of the pandemic and the fall of industrial production gained less than 15% of the agreed targets in the last year and was unable to meet payment obligations.
Turkish companies-debtors while holding consultations with Gazprom. If the negotiations do not lead to a common decision, the problem should be solved at the international level.
Turkey in 2007 was second in importance and volume of the market for Gazprom. Gas in the country comes across the Black sea by pipeline “Blue stream” and “Turkish stream” (introduced in the beginning of 2020). The design capacity of the first $ 16 billion cubic meters a year, the second and 31.5 billion cubic meters annually.
Turkey in 2019, reduced purchases of imported gas by 10%, while the supply of “Gazprom” fell by 40% due to growth of supplies to Turkey from Azerbaijan and liquefied natural gas.
Russian gas Supplies to Turkey continued to decline in February — in 2 times, and the APR – in 4.6 times. In General, the export of gas from Russia decreased due to the pandemic, but the rest of the country-the clients of “Gazprom” following contract and timely pay the bills. The largest buyer of Russian gas began in April Italy — 1,966 billion cubic meters (- 5% yoy), followed by Belarus — 1,496 billion cubic meters (- 9%), Germany — 1,057 billion (down three times) and France — 1,037 billion cubic meters (- 9%). Gas supplies to Poland increasedis 29 times to 731 million cubic meters in Austria by 5% to 1.049 billion cubic meters.