The Turkish Energy Minister called on Wednesday for oil and gas supplies in the Black Sea to be protected, after three Russian tankers were targeted in attacks off the Turkish coast.
Turkey, the minister said, is concerned not only about the threat to shipping, but also about two underwater gas pipelines, Blue Stream and Turk Stream, that transport natural gas from Russia to Turkey.
Referring to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany in 2022, Bayraktar highlighted Turkey’s dependence on imported gas.
“We call on all parties to keep energy infrastructure out of this war, because it is part of people’s daily lives,” he said at a press conference, according to the Associated Press.
“We need to maintain uninterrupted energy flows in the Black Sea and straits [Bósforo e Dardanelos]”, he added.
Ukraine announced that its naval drones struck two oil tankers on November 28. The third ship was hit on Tuesday while heading to the Turkish port of Sinop.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attacks as a threat to “the safety of navigation, life and the environment, especially in the Turkish exclusive zone.”
Russian oil and gas supply almost half of the total energy needs of Türkiye, a NATO member that has been under pressure from Washington to reduce its dependence on Russia.
When Erdogan visited Donald Trump in September, the US President urged him to mitigate relations with Moscow, including in the energy sector. During that same trip to Washington, Turkish companies signed a multimillion-dollar agreement with US companies to purchase liquefied natural gas.
Defending Turkey’s purchase of Russian oil and gas, Bayraktar said Russia has proven to be “a very reliable supplier for the Turkish market” since Turkish families began switching to gas in the 1980s.
The minister conceded, on the other hand, that “it is no secret” that Turkey “needs to have a balanced supply portfolio”.
“We don’t want to depend on a single supplier country or a few countries,” he said, adding that Turkey is “trying to diversify supplier countries and obtain competitive gas.”
Turkish state oil and gas company BOTAS recently finalized a contract with Russia’s Gazprom for the supply of gas, the minister also said.
Ankara is also involved with Moscow in the area of nuclear energy. Rosatom, a Russian state company, is building a nuclear power plant on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast.
The four reactors at the Akkuyu plant are expected to generate around 10% of the electricity to be consumed in Türkiye when they come into operation. However, the project has been plagued by delays, worsened by sanctions imposed on Russian entities following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Akkuyu’s electricity supply will begin next year, Bayraktar said.
“We need to play a moderating role to help release this money, which will be used for the project,” he added.