The Potential Role of Turkey in a Globalising Gas Market

GTE Policy Brief (Istituto Affari Internazionali) No.9, 3 December 2013, 6 p.

by Mehmet Doğan Üçok *

In a changing global energy landscape, Turkey and the EU could have more opportunities to enhance their energy security, benefiting from the developments in the global LNG scenario and of the energy fields in Shah Deniz, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Iraq.Especially the recent TANAP agreements show that Turkey is starting to play a significant role in the transportation of the region’s resources to the west, and become a « geographically natural » gas bridge, or a possible energy hub. To facilitate this further, Turkey’s main policy objective in the governance of natural gas should be the formation of a transparent, liberal and competitive gas market. Turkey’s energy market is entering a new, liberal era, and if the liberalisation of the Turkish natural gas market is also successfully accomplished in the following years, Turkey would attract more investors to her energy stock market and to the surrounding gas rich regions, paving the way for gas-to-gas competition. Turkey would then have a stronger potential to develop into a regional energy trade hub, providing a bridge to the European energy exchange markets.

* Mehmet Dogan Üçok, PhD, is Coordinator of the Sabanci University Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC).

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