Yang Hanjiao: Turkey's energy status after the Russo-Ukrainian War
Author: Yang Hanjiao, Graduate Student, Middle East College, Beijing Language and Culture University, Research Assistant, Turkish Research Center
Source: Beiyu National Hospital
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
In April 2022, germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation submitted a confidential report to conservative German lawmakers saying that Turkey, as Europe's strategic energy hub, can play an increasing role in Europe's energy strategy, while recommending that Germany and Turkey strengthen cooperation to address the growing energy problem.
Russia and Ukraine guarded the Black Sea transport route, and the conflict between the two sides cut off the route from Eastern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula through the Black Sea, thus hindering the transport of commodities, which in turn led to a sustained rise in international food and oil prices, turmoil in financial markets, and ultimately a huge negative impact on Turkey and other countries.
Located at the crossroads of Eurasia, Turkey has been a transport corridor for the Gulf and Caspian states to export oil and gas. Due to the lack of energy reserves, 60% of Turkey's energy consumption needs to be imported. With Turkey's rising demand for oil and gas, energy has become a major factor influencing Turkey's domestic and foreign policy. Therefore, Ankara has developed a diversified energy strategy to meet the energy needs of its own economic development by building international energy corridors and promoting energy negotiations with European countries.
Turkey plays a key role in the Russia-Europe energy game. For the EU, in the choice of its energy strategy, the vigorous development of new energy technologies not only requires technical conditions, but also affects the traditional energy market, facing a series of risks and challenges; to a certain extent, importing natural gas from the United States is also impractical, lacking sufficient LNG carriers and insufficient infrastructure support; while importing energy from Central Asia and other regions, Turkey will be an important part of future energy transportation. Similarly, for Russia, in order to reduce the risk of energy transit, Turkey will be the best option to achieve its goals. Therefore, it can be said that turkey is a role to be reckoned with in the Russia-Europe energy game, and its position in the world energy strategy will continue to increase.
First, Turkey's energy strategic position has been significantly improved
Turkey has an indispensable role to play whether the EU is reducing its dependence on Russia's energy and accelerating its diversification strategy for energy imports, or Russia's efforts to avoid the risk of energy transit through Ukraine and stabilizing its energy trade market in Europe. In this regard, Turkey's strategic position in energy has improved as a result of the situation.
Specifically, as an important energy transit country, Turkey still has three significant advantages despite the current lack of indigenous oil and gas reserves. First, its excellent geographical location across Asia and Europe has made Turkey an important energy transit country. On the one hand, large quantities of oil and gas from Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East are transported by ship from the Turkish Strait to Europe every day. On the other hand, a large number of oil and gas pipelines also form a huge energy transportation network in Turkey. As far as oil is concerned, Turkey has many pipelines from the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Pipeline completed in 1970 and the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan Pipeline completed in 2006 via the Caucasus and the Middle East to the Mediterranean coast; in terms of natural gas, Turkey is not only an important transit country for the "Southern Natural Gas Corridor" (TANAP) and "Turk Stream" projects built by the European Union and Russia respectively. The Tabriz-Erzurum gas pipeline was also built in collaboration with Iran, making Iran's South Pars gas field a stable source of gas supply for Turkey. Second, Turkey's flexible foreign policy has left and right between energy producers and consumers. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Turkey has not only been an important energy grasp of the European Union, but also an important hub for Russia to avoid energy transit risks and stabilize the European market, and its strategic position in energy has continued to rise. In the foreseeable future, Turkey can rely on its own energy advantages to become a "buffer zone" for energy transportation in balkan countries and even in Europe, with strong potential.
Finally, Turkey's recent new discoveries near the Black Sea are about to be shed of its status as a net importer of energy, and Turkey has been drilling in the Black Sea in search of gas and oil. In August 2020, President Erdogan announced the discovery of 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Tuna-1 area, which was later named the Sakarya oil and gas field. In October of the same year, another 85 million cubic meters of natural gas were discovered in the same area, and the Sakarya gas field currently ranks twelfth in the world in terms of proven oil and gas reserves, which is one of the important deepwater gas fields, and is expected to be completed in 2023 and will become a stable gas source in Turkey in the future. Turkey's energy minister, Fatih Donmez, said the Sakarya gas field will peak in capacity in 2027, when it will be able to meet nearly a third of Turkey's domestic demand. The discovery of Black Sea gas was a turning point in Turkey's history. It marks that Turkey is about to achieve natural gas self-sufficiency, making it a combination of energy production areas and energy transit stations, and achieving the improvement of energy status.
Second, Turkey's energy strategic significance
The improvement of Turkey's energy status has benefited from the energy game between Russia and Europe, and has become an important fulcrum for Turkey to achieve its national strategic goals. As a result, Turkey can not only obtain an adequate energy supply and increase the level of energy diversification, but also gain leverage for political negotiations with the EU.
Under the leadership of the Zhengfa Party, Turkey's domestic economy has achieved rapid growth. However, domestic energy shortages have become the biggest bottleneck restricting the sustainable development of their economies. Nearly 75% of Turkey's domestic energy consumption depends on imports, of which oil and gas resources account for a significant proportion of Turkey's energy consumption structure, and energy import expenditure accounts for more than 2/3 of the country's current account deficit. Total more than $65 billion). Russia is Turkey's largest source of energy imports and relies heavily on Russian energy. With the opening and operation of the Turkish River, Turkey can not only obtain a relatively abundant supply of natural gas, but also get a considerable income from transit fees. Under the agreement between Russia and Turkey, Gazprom will supply 14 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to turkey's domestic market through future Turkish flows, while increasing Turkey's gas supply through the blue stream by 3 billion cubic meters per year, EU-backed TANAP and TAP pipelines will also meet Turkey's gas consumption and help reduce energy dependence on Russia and increase the level of diversification of its energy imports. The main source of gas for the TANAP pipeline is the Central Asia-Caspian Region (which may include parts of the Middle East), where 6 billion cubic meters of gas per year will enter the Turkish domestic market and the rest will be shipped to the European market. It can be said that in the current Eurasian energy grid, Turkey can not only obtain enough energy supply to meet its own energy needs and increase its economic strength, but also reduce its energy dependence on Russia and improve the diversification of its energy imports.
Joining the EU is Turkey's long-standing aspiration. However, Turkey's accession process has been slow due to various obstacles, and it remains only a candidate for the EU. The energy issue makes Turkey and the EU a community with a common future, and it can even be said that Turkey has greater initiative. The EU's biggest current issue in the energy sector is security of supply, and diversifying the sources and pathways of energy imports is crucial. Turkey's west is an EU country, and the east is an energy-rich region such as Central Asia and the Middle East. Currently, Turkey is a signatory to the European Energy Charter and follows a common energy treaty with the European Union. The crisis in Ukraine has exacerbated the energy game between Russia and Europe. In early 2015, the European Commission began forming the European Energy Union to further safeguard the EU's energy security and facilitate policy communication among member states. For Turkey, the energy alliance provides another channel for joining the EU, and its important strategic position in the field of energy has become an important bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU. Members of the Energy Union enjoy the same treatment as EU member states, which can be called functional EU member states when it comes to energy. As a member of the Energy Union, Turkey enjoys equal rights with EU member states in energy matters, which will give it an important leverage for its accession to the EU. In addition, joining the energy union, accepting unified policy supervision and integrating into the large EU market will also provide external institutional regulatory conditions for Turkey to truly become an energy center. Still, Turkey has an open option to join the European Energy Union. In recent years, as Turkey's "eastward" diplomatic strategy has become increasingly prominent, Turkey's urgency to join the European Union has declined. On the one hand, with the heating up of Russian-Turkish economic and trade relations, Russia has extended an "olive branch" to Turkey to incorporate it into the Eurasian Economic Union under its leadership; on the other hand, in order to maintain its own energy security and promote the diversification strategy of energy imports, Turkey is an important partner that needs to be relied on. In order to maximize its own national interests, Turkey will inevitably sell between the two. Turkey will be the winner, whether it joins the Energy Union to force it to become a full member of the European Union, or joins the Eurasian Economic Union for economic reasons. Whether the EU can protect its interests from harm depends on how much benefit it gives to Turkey.
Third, the risks faced by Turkey's energy transit
As mentioned above, Due to short-term energy supply shortages, Russia dominates the total EU energy imports, while export resources from Central Asia, the Middle East and other places cannot fully meet the needs of the EU and Turkey. The second phase of the project in Azerbaijan's Shadeniz gas field, an important gas supply system for TANAP, is expected to deliver gas to Turkey for the first time in 2018, with gas supply to Europe postponed until 2019. In fact, it is estimated that between 2020 and 2025, TANAP's supply of 10 billion cubic meters per year will meet less than 3% of the EU's gas import demand, which is only equivalent to the current size of imports from Nigeria. Recently, the comprehensive reach of the Iran nuclear deal has brought good news for energy cooperation between the West and Iran. However, Iran's role as a reliable source of natural gas remains limited. For example, during peak energy demand seasons, such as winter, Iran may consider more of its own energy needs, and prices may also be higher than russia. Due to the impact of the regional security situation, the Iraqi and Kurdistan regional governments are not optimistic about the scale of their exports in the short term, and it is difficult to meet the energy needs of the EU. In addition, as an energy hub, Turkey also faces a series of problems in terms of infrastructure, and its domestic energy storage capacity limits its energy re-export capacity.
In addition, Turkey's energy pipeline as a transit country in more volatile regions such as Asia and the Middle East, security issues have become an important risk factor that Turkey's energy transit countries must consider. In Central Asia, the "three forces" affect the security and stability of the region throughout the year, threaten the effective operation of oil and gas pipelines in Asia, and non-traditional security factors in Central Asia.
The construction and operation of oil and gas pipelines face major safety challenges. In the Middle East, the security situation in the region is even worse. Energy cooperation between Turkey and the Autonomous Governments of Iraq and Kurdish was once blocked due to the threat of terrorism and extremism. Oil and gas pipelines from Iraq to Turkey are frequently sabotaged by militants, such as the Kirkuk-Cheihan oil pipeline, which has been damaged several times since 2003, making it difficult to meet the pipeline's expected transport capacity. Since the turmoil in the Middle East, the regional security and political situation have been greatly affected, which not only restricts the cooperation of relevant countries in the energy field, but also causes great damage to the security and stability of the region. The recently emerged Islamic State has not only carried out attacks and looting in the Middle East, but has also extended its "claws" into the energy sector. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the Islamic State stole about 3 million barrels of crude oil from oil depots and pipelines in Iraq, using crude oil smuggling to obtain funds. Iraq's oil industry faces a serious threat from the Islamic State. If things continue like this, the energy industries in Iraq and middle Eastern countries will face huge security risks.
For the EU, reducing its dependence on Russia for energy and promoting the diversification of energy import sources and routes are important strategic considerations. Russia's interest lies in maintaining its monopoly position by avoiding exporting cheap natural gas from Central Asia to the European market and reducing its transit dependence on Ukraine by promoting Turkey as a reliable energy transport nation. In addition, there are disputes within the Central Asian countries over the right to exploit resources. The conflict of interest of many parties is focused on the game of oil and gas pipelines, and all parties strongly support pipelines that maximize their own interests. In order to maximize its own interests, Turkey has adopted different degrees of support for different channels. However, this puts the use of Turkey as an energy importer as a transit country at greater risk. For example, the Nabuko pipeline became a victim of the energy pipeline game, which not only failed Turkey's plan to become an energy transport country, but also harmed the interests of oil and gas pipeline builders and supporters, and affected the strategic layout of all parties involved. Affected by the conflict in Ukraine, Russia abandoned the South Stream pipeline and transferred it to Turkey. While Turkey has access to resource replenishment and gas import discounts on the Turkish River, it has had a negative impact on energy importers in Central and Southern Europe, and it is inevitable to worry about the security of their energy supplies.
epilogue
In the energy game between Russia and Europe, Ukraine's position as an energy transporter has been seriously affected, and Turkey has significantly improved its energy strategic position with its multiple advantages. Turkey's unique geostrategic position is the natural condition for Turkey to become an energy transport country, and the energy game between Russia and Europe provides an important external environment for promoting its energy status. Turkey has played an indispensable role in reducing the EU's energy dependence on Russia and accelerating its strategy to diversify its energy imports, avoiding the risk of Russian energy through Ukraine, and stabilizing Russia's energy trade with Europe. However, Turkey, as an energy transport country, also has some inherent risks. To avoid these risks, both Turkey and the two energy suppliers need to take strong measures to address them. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the design and construction of any oil and gas pipeline is inseparable from geopolitical considerations. The improvement of Turkey's energy strategic position usually depends on the game between Russia and the West, as well as its willingness and ability to deal with the crisis.
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this official account
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