Turkey's natural gas consumption in the first quarter of 2020 increased by 2.9% to 16.6 billion cubic meters compared with the same period last year, according to data of Turkey's Energy and Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) on Monday.

Household gas consumption was up 1.7% to 7.9 billion cubic meters compared with the same period of 2019 and accounted for 47.5% of total gas consumption in the first quarter of 2020.

Natural gas power plants consumed 2.5 billion cubic meters while consumption of organized industrial site subscribers amounted to 1.06 billion cubic meters in the first three months of this year.

Other sectors consumed the remaining 5.2 billion cubic meters.

Over this period, the highest natural gas consumption occurred in January with 6.5 billion cubic meters. In February, consumption reached 5.67 billion and in March it amounted to 4.44 billion cubic meters.

Natural gas in power plants saw the biggest change over this period when gas consumption amounted to 1.28 billion cubic meters and February saw a large fall in usage to 790 million cubic meters. March saw the lowest level of consumption in power plants in the first quarter with 388 million cubic meters.

As a net natural gas importer, Turkey imported 15.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the first three months of 2020. Turkey's imports in the same period were up by 5.6% compared with the first quarter of 2019.

In 2019, Turkey's natural gas consumption totaled 44.9 billion cubic meters and is forecast this year to reach 46 billion cubic meters.