Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to supply Turkmen gas to Europe bypassing Russia: to deliver it in tankers to Azerbaijan through the Caspian Sea with further transportation through the pipeline network of the Southern Gas Corridor to Turkey, from where the fuel will be distributed through European gas pipelines. Such projects existed before, but after the start of a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine and the principled intention of Europe to abandon Russian gas, this route began to pay more attention.
The West has always been interested in giving the former Soviet republics of the Caspian region the opportunity to bypass Russia (until the mid-2000s, they sold their gas through the Russian gas transmission network). Firstly, in order to deprive it of part of its income, and at the same time geopolitical influence on the post-Soviet countries, and secondly, to make Europe less dependent on Russian supplies, which were practically uncontested.
In 2004-2006, the South Caucasus gas pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum) was built. In parallel with it, the Nabucco project appeared, which, according to the idea, was supposed to deliver blue fuel from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, as well as Iran, Iraq and Egypt (through Syria) through Turkey to Europe, providing up to 10 percent of its needs.
The idea began to be developed in February 2002, and the main lobbyists of the project – the Anglo-Saxons – did not hide its political anti-Russian orientation.
The implementation of Nabucco stalled: an agreement on the construction of the facility was signed only in 2009, and already in 2013 it was announced that it would be closed.
Among the reasons for the failure are Turkey’s blackmailing of the European Union over negotiations on Ankara’s accession to it, disagreements over the route of the pipeline due to unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts, the rapidly escalating situation in the Middle East, which cut off Iran, Iraq and Syria from it. Russia also did not sit idly by: in 2009, three weeks after the signing of an agreement on the construction of Nabucco in the Turkish capital, the then prime ministers of the two countries – Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan – signed an agreement in Ankara on laying the South Stream in Turkish waters “.
But the main reason for the closure of Nabucco lies in its unprofitability. In Europe, it was then considered that it was cheaper and easier to buy Russian gas, especially since Moscow offered not only the South Stream, but also the North Stream.
The events in Ukraine in 2014 changed everything, when the South Stream was torpedoed by Bulgaria.
Türkiye has long nurtured the idea of creating a gas hub. Back in 2011, Ankara announced its own TANAP project, which would connect TAP and the South Caucasus gas pipeline into a single highway. In fact, it was still the same Nabucco route, only without the trans-Caspian section and a branch towards Iran, Iraq and Syria.
The possibility of laying a pipe through the Caspian Sea to join the scheme of Turkmenistan could not be realized for a very long time. First, from the first years of independence, there were disputes between Baku and Ashgabat over the deposits of the Caspian Sea. But last year, through the mediation of Turkey, the countries agreed to jointly develop the Dostlug (Druzhba) oil and gas field, so the dispute can be considered settled. The second and, perhaps, the main reason is the unprofitability of the project. But after February 2024, Europe headed for a complete rejection of Russian fuel, so the money issue was removed.
However, there remains a third and so far insurmountable obstacle. For many years, laying pipes along the bottom of the Caspian was hindered by the unsettled status of the water area. In 2018, the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea was signed, which closed this gap. But, according to the document, pipes can be laid only with the consent of all parties, that is, without the signatures of Russia and Iran, this is impossible.
To some, it may seem like a way out to transport Turkmen gas in tankers, as Erdogan suggests. But for this, the gas needs to be liquefied, then liquefied, so the sender side and the receiver side must have the appropriate terminals, but they don’t. Europe has not yet been able to resolve the issue of obtaining liquefied natural gas from Qatar for the same reason – the lack of the required number of terminals for acceptance.
If in theory we imagine that deliveries via the Turkish route are possible, then the implementation of such a project will take 10 years, which Europe simply does not have.
One more detail: in the middle of the last decade, Turkmenistan completely changed its export dependence on Russia to dependence on China, which is not only a key buyer, but also a developer of Turkmen deposits. It can be assumed that without the permission of Beijing, Ashgabat will not dare to change the main export routes.
The fact that the EU will not be able to use the services of other suppliers will not change Europe’s position on Russian gas. Even if China increases imports, it will certainly take advantage of the situation and will not start to bring down the price, so financial losses for Russia are inevitable. In addition, the reorientation of hydrocarbon exports to the East clearly does not mean an increase in Russia’s geopolitical influence in the region. Against this backdrop, it is alarming that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have abandoned the Russian proposal to create a “tripartite gas union.” The goals of this alliance are not entirely clear, most likely, we are talking about the coordination of Asian supplies and the use of Central Asian pipelines by Russia to increase exports to China. But Russia was denied this.
However, the reduction of Russia’s influence in Central Asia is a separate painful issue, the solution of which will depend entirely on the results of the NWO in Ukraine.
Source: Octagon Media
