This epitomizes today’s LNG-geostrategic nexus.
One way to look at the Turkey-Shell LNG deal is that Mr. Erdogan wants Turkey to avoid Germany’s blunder in relying heavily on Putin’s Russia for its imported natural gas. He obviously wants Turkey to diversify its natural gas imports. In this regard, the opening comment by Tom Marzec-Manser, head of Gas Analytics at ICIS, London, that “this is a big deal” for Turkey – is correct.
Turkey uses about 50 bcm (billion cubic meters) of natural gas per year. This is currently supplied almost entirely via pipelines, mainly from Russia, also from Iran and from Azerbaijan. As I pointed out, Mr. Erdogan is well aware how Putin cut off German and EU Russian gas supplies as a geostrategic weapon in preparation for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This plunged Germany and the entire EU into the acute 2022-2023 European energy crisis. Germany, especially, still has not fully recovered.
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