On October 12, Vladimir Putin, as part of the Russian Energy Week, announced a proposal to create an international gas hub in Turkey, thereby compensating for the lost capacity to deliver gas to Europe after the terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream. The offer came as a surprise for several reasons.
First, judging by the first reaction of the Turkish Energy Minister, it came as a surprise to the Turkish authorities as well. However, the proposal itself was received with great enthusiasm: two days later, Recep Tayyip Erdogan instructed the government to work out the possibility of creating a hub in the shortest possible time and even outlined some of the details of the project. For example, the fact that a hub can be created in Turkish Thrace, a province located in the European part of Turkey, adjacent to the borders of Greece and Bulgaria.
Secondly, Putin’s words about the gas hub raise, at first glance, quite definite questions. The Nord Streams, passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, have just been blown up. Thus, it was proved that in the new realities, offshore gas pipelines are by no means the safest route for fuel delivery. The creation of a gas hub in Turkey involves the construction of new offshore pipelines that will face the same challenges as Nord Stream.
In this case, why do the advantages of the announced project still outweigh its disadvantages? And what is its strategic importance, taking into account the fact that the EU, in principle, has taken a course towards the rejection of energy sources from Russia?
The first advantage is the relative ease of implementation of the project. According to the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, Russia has learned to build gas pipelines on its own and will be able to implement such projects even without Western equipment and technologies. In addition, a significant part of the necessary infrastructure has already been created. Until 2014, when Bulgaria, under pressure from the European Union, banned the laying of pipes on its territory as part of the South Stream project, Gazprom managed to build the onshore part of the infrastructure in the Krasnodar Territory.
Some of these capacities were probably used for gasification of the Krasnodar Territory and the North Caucasus, but the rest may well be used for its original purpose. The South Stream, which has sunk into oblivion, was designed with a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, which is even more than the total capacity of Nord Streams (55 billion cubic meters). It is potentially possible to complete the necessary maritime infrastructure in one or two years. That is how much time it took Russia to build the “Blue” and “Turkish” streams. And the sea jumpers there are much shorter in comparison with the Baltic part of the pipe.
Now to the issue of security. In this context, the Black Sea compares favorably with the Baltic. Russia and Turkey totally dominate the region militarily and in terms of intelligence. In addition, Ankara directly controls the passage of military ships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and therefore can easily track their actions and movements, and, if necessary, prohibit passage altogether.
How reliable can Turkey be as a partner? This is a question for a long discussion, but no matter how controversial Russian-Turkish relations, Moscow and Ankara seem to have learned to share economic and geopolitical interests, preventing the latter from harming the former.
Moreover, it is clear that the transformation of Turkey into a gas hub, which until now was Germany and Austria, and which Poland is now claiming (through imports of American LNG), strengthens Erdogan’s political positions. He faces a difficult presidential election next summer, and the current economic crisis in Turkey, accompanied by a massive weakening of the lira, is by no means conducive to easy re-election. In this sense, Moscow is extending a helping hand to Erdogan, which means that the political rapprochement of countries (probably within the framework of larger associations like BRICS or SCO) in 2023-2024 cannot be ruled out.
Well, now about the main thing. Why did Russia and Turkey need this project at all? In May of this year, the European Commission presented the REPowerEU strategy, which provides for a complete rejection of Russian energy sources, including gas, by 2027. But only the implementation of the project to create an international gas hub in Turkey will take at least a couple of years. Serious people will not fence the garden for the sake of fuel supplies for three to four years.
The only answer to this question is the following. Moscow and Ankara are betting on the collapse of the European Union, at least on the significant sovereignization of the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe in economic matters. The expected decline in the economy of the locomotive of the EU – Germany – will negate subsidies to less developed countries from the Union budget. It will become much more difficult to dictate one’s political will and impose economic decisions on Brussels. This means that Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia and other countries dependent on the supply of Russian oil and gas, with a high degree of probability, will begin to make decisions in favor of national rather than transnational interests. Against the background of the coming economic storm, reliable supplies of Russian gas through the mediation of Turkey can be a real salvation for them.
Gleb Prostakov, VIEW
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