Gazprom is reportedly no longer interested in establishing a gas hub in Turkey in line with a proposal floated by President Vladimir Putin in October 2022 to increase Russian gas sales to Europe.
A Bloomberg report last week that Gazprom had decided against the move did not come as a surprise to industry observers.
Russian industry sources told Energy Intelligence one year ago that the talks over the gas hub for sales to Europe were progressing slowly and were not expected to yield a result anytime soon.
When announcing the idea, Putin said that Russia could move the lost volume of transit through the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, damaged in what Moscow saw as a terrorist attack in September 2022, to the Black Sea and “create a major gas hub for Europe in Turkey, if, of course, our partners are interested in seeing this happen.”
The EU, however, has had concerns that the proposed Turkey hub could become a “backdoor” for politically toxic Russian gas. Next week, it is expected to unveil a legislative proposal to ban Russian gas imports by the end of 2027, which might tighten the control over the origin of imported gas, including via Turkey.
