Turkey's natural gas imports increased by 28% in October year-on-year, according to a Turkish energy watchdog's data Monday.
Natural gas imports increased to around 4.04 billion cubic meters (bcm) in October last year, from approximately 3.15 bcm during the same month of 2019, Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) said in its monthly natural gas market report.
In October 2020, the country imported 3.24 bcm of natural gas via pipelines, while 795 million cubic meters (mcm) was purchased as liquefied natural gas (LNG), EPDK's data showed. This marked an increase in pipeline gas imports of 36.2% and 2.5% in LNG imports.
Russia was Turkey's top gas import destination, supplying 2.04 bcm of natural gas while Azerbaijan and Algeria followed with 1.1 bcm and 518 mcm, respectively.
In October, Turkey's gas imports from Russia grew by 243% while the volume of Azerbaijan and Algeria's imports increased by 18.3% and 22.9%, respectively, compared to the same period last year.
Consumption up 23.8%
Turkey's total gas consumption increased by 23.9% to approximately 3.57 bcm this October from around 2.88 bcm last October.
Household consumption decreased by 2.4% to reach 380 mcm while the use of gas in power plants increased by 85.5% to 1.45 bcm during the same period. The growth in the volume of natural gas consumed by the power plants was among the main factors leading to an increase in total gas consumption and imports.
The amount of natural gas in storage in October decreased by 6% to around 3.26 bcm from about 3.46 bcm in October last year.
LPG imports down
Meanwhile, the country’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imports decreased by 3.9% to 263,365 tons in October 2020 compared to the same month of 2019, according to the latest data from the EPDK.
The data showed that Turkey's imports came from the U.S., Algeria, Kazakhstan, Spain, Greece and Norway.
Turkey's LPG production in October decreased to 84,716 tons – marking a year-on-year drop of 6.7%.
Exports increased to 17,583 tons in October from 5,500 tons in October 2019.
Total LPG sales in October also slightly increased by 0.8% to around 356,627 tons, including 286,793 tons of autogas, 62,111 tons of bottled LPG and 7,722 tons of bulk LPG.