This commentary is from USAK’s Energy Review Newsletter
http://www.turkishweekly.net/energyreview/TurkishWeekly-EnergyReview3.pdf
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European Union is one of the biggest industries of the world and 50% of the energy used by the EU comes from abroad, which means the EU is energy dependent. Due to this, stability and security in the energy resources has high priority the Union’s policies.
When the EU’s energy consumption composition is examined closely, share of non-renewable resources are; 36,8% in oil, 24% in natural gas, 18,8% solid fuel and 14,4% nuclear energy. However, in 2004 data 82% of oil and 63% of natural gas are imported from abroad and Russia is one of the main exporters with a share of 29%. If the crisis between Ukraine and Russia and recently with Belarus is remembered, the importance of energy routes diversification can be understood. In this framework, Turkey can play a critical role in the EU’s energy security policy projections with its special strategic location. It presents a secure and feasible route for petroleum and natural gas in the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia.
In this context, Turkey carries on various projects to become an energy corridor between East and West and parallel to this takes crucial steps in economic and political terms in this geography. Today, Ceyhan has become an important energy terminal in Europe and it will become more important with the upcoming projects. Transported oil with the various pipelines is imported to the world and mainly to Italy. First of all Kirkuk-Yumutalik oil pipeline has a capacity of 70,9 million barrel per year and transports Iraqi oil to the region and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Crude Oil Pipeline transports Caspian oil with the capacity of 1 million barrel per day to this terminal. The transported oil capacity of this terminal is expected to increase with the participation of Kazakh oil to this pipeline in the future.
Today, Turkey is a net importer of natural gas. The current gas exporters to Turkey are Russia and Iran. In the near future, Turkey considers exporting to export gas from Egypt and Iraq. Moreover, with Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) Natural Gas Pipeline, it is planned to transport Azeri gas to Turkey and this will be the first leg of Trans-Caspian Natural Gas project which will transport Turkmen gas to Europe. Another potential project that will carry Caspian and Middle Eastern natural gas to Europe is Nabucco. The planned route will pass through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary and the last stop will be Austria.
During the crisis between Russia and Ukraine European gas supply was been affected negatively and alternative transportation routes has become a priority in Europe. Currently there is a pipeline between Russia and Turkey which is called “Blue Stream Pipeline”. In June 2006 Turkey, Gazprom and Hungary has reached to an agreement to build a new pipeline to transport Russian natural gas from Turkey to Europe, so with the realization of this project there will be an important natural gas route alternative to the current ones for Europe. In addition to these another agreement signed with Greece to construct another pipeline that will carry natural gas to Greece and to Italy under Aegean Sea. In the end with the projects mentioned above Turkey plans to be the fourth biggest energy terminal for Europe after Russia, Norway and North Africa.
To conclude, today the dependency of the EU to the imported energy is around 50% and it is assumed that this number will become 68% in 2030 which means Europe needs to diversify its energy sources beginning from today. On the other hand one of the hottest issues in the EU is the expansion policies and it is always discussed how can contribute new members economically and politically to the Union. In this regard, Turkey presents new alternatives to Europe in terms of energy in the long term along with its other assets as being located in the junction of energy sources and with its energy projects that could satisfy the Union’s energy needs. However, these kind of big projects require political will and an important amount of financial resource and the cooperation with Turkey and the EU in this direction would help these projects to gain impetus and to become a real asset for Europe in the long term.
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