Winter Demand & Pipeline Outages Threaten Iran’s Gas Market Share In Turkey

13 Jan 2023 Issue: 66 / 2 By: Yesar Al-Maleki

Another outage on Iran’s gas pipeline to Turkey at a time when demand peaks in both countries is reinforcing a view that years of sanctions have left much of Iran’s energy infrastructure in a state of disrepair. With negotiations underway to renew an expiring gas sales deal, a perception that Iran is an unreliable supplier could cost it dearly.

The reliability, or otherwise, of Iranian gas exports is once again in the spotlight, with exports to Turkey dropping sharply amid pipeline problems. Turkish state firm Botas announced on 7 January that deliveries of Iranian gas had since 1 January dropped 70% below contracted levels “due to a malfunction caused by the Iran Transmission Network.”

Botas added that Iran had informed it that it was working to fix the issue as swiftly as possible, and that “in this winter period, all necessary measures have been taken to ensure supply across the country remains reliable, and additional needs are being met from our natural gas storage facilities.” (CONTINUED - 805 WORDS)