Turkey to attain gas targets in 1-2 yrs: Oxford expert

By Murat Temizer

ANKARA (AA) - With the Turkish government's decisiveness, the target of a 30 percent gas share in the power sector by 2023 will most likely be achieved in one to two years, according to the Oxford Energy Institute for Energy Studies' (OIES) latest issue on Monday.

Gulmira Rzayeva, a research associate at the institute, stated in the issue that the reduction in natural gas demand in the power generation sector has significantly affected overall gas demand growth in Turkey in the period between 2014 and 2016.

She noted that this trend would continue, bringing the share of gas in the electricity generation sector down, while increasing the share of coal and renewables.

Rzayeva said that it seems that the government will continue this policy in the longer term.

"However, this policy is not directed at the residential and industrial sectors, where demand growth has been quite modest," she stressed.

The expert noted that the overly optimistic projections made by Turkish BOTAS in 2012 were based on calculations of electricity demand, population, GDP and foreign direct investment (FDI) growth, which had proved accurate in 2013 and 2014.

"However, on the basis of these projections, the government decided to take solid measures to prevent such a growth in demand – which might have more than doubled by 2030 without intervention, and would also have affected Turkey’s economic and political security," she said.

She disclosed that the first decline in gas demand was achieved in Turkey in 2016 down from 48.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2015 to 46 bcm.

She also proposed that the fall in natural gas consumption in the power sector would be balanced by moderate growth in the residential and industrial sectors in 2017. Given the calculations above, analyses from a paper by the author ‘Turkey’s gas demand decline: reasons and consequences’ by Rzayeva, OIES Energy Insight in April 2017 show that Turkey’s gas demand will be no more than 55–56 bcm by 2025 and 60–62 bcm by 2030.