EFI Principal Melanie Kenderdine recently published the piece “The Importance of Natural Gas to Turkey’s Energy and Economic Future” in Turkish Policy Quarterly and the Atlantic Council’s Joint Fall 2019 Issue. Kenderdine highlights that Turkey—historically an important transit corridor between the East and West—could play a critical role in the region as a natural gas bridge between Asia and Europe.
According to Kenderdine, Turkey would benefit from becoming a natural gas hub in the following ways:
- Natural gas provides price stability. Through market changes and investments, Turkey could reduce the volatility of natural gas prices, and “effectively de-link natural gas prices from oil prices.”
- Natural gas provides economic benefits by generating foreign exchange revenues for Turkish investors and traders.
- Natural gas provides energy security: “A Turkish natural gas hub would enhance Turkey’s energy security by reducing the vulnerabilities associated with current gas imports through increased gas storage capacity, greater supply diversity, and the capacity to import large volumes of spot LNG as needed.”
- The global importance of natural gas is growing. It would benefit Turkey economically to “remain tied into this important world energy resource.”
- Natural gas reduces greenhouse gas emissions. As a part of Turkey’s energy mix, natural gas “could help firm variable renewable generation and offer a relatively low capital-cost alternative to retiring coal plants that cannot be affordably retrofitted with carbon capture, storage and utilization technologies.”
Click here to read the full article.
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