Moscow cannot open a gas hub in Turkey: there are disputes over who will manage it
Almost a year has passed since dictator Putin voiced this idea, but no decision has been made yet
Russia's plan to create a gas hub in Turkey is facing delays and obstacles due to disagreements over its management.
Source. Reuters writes about this with reference to two sources familiar with the details.
Russia, which has effectively lost the European gas export market, planned to create the largest gas hub for Europe in Turkey, hoping to transfer the transit capacity lost in the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Almost a year has passed since this idea was voiced by dictator Putin, but no decision has been made. In May, Turkish authorities said that the project could be launched within a year.
At a meeting with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in early September, Putin said that Gazprom had handed over a roadmap for the hub to Turkish Botas.
A source familiar with the situation said the gas project has faced delays as Moscow and Ankara argue over who will run the hub.
"They are fighting over who should run the hub," the source said on condition of anonymity.
Another source close to Gazprom confirmed the "problem" as a disagreement over management.
The Kremlin has claimed that the project to create a gas hub in Turkey is complex and cannot be implemented without delays, and that the topic still needs to be worked out with possible gas buyers in southern Europe.
Turkey is promoting its own gas export program: in August, Botas signed an agreement with Hungary's MVM to sell about 300 million cubic meters of gas.
The capacity of the two lines of the Turkish Stream is 31.5 billion cubic meters per year, compared to 110 billion cubic meters that were transmitted through the blown-up Nord Stream.
