Turkey and Qatar sign LNG spot agreement: Update

Spanish Market: Natural gas
17/07/14

Updates details throughout and adds new last paragraph

Turkey has signed an agreement to take nine tankers of Qatari spot LNG from the end of this year or the start of 2015.

The size of the supply is "a little less than what we wanted", Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz said. "We are making our preparations for the winter."

The agreement represents about one-third of Turkey's projected demand, Yildiz said. Yildiz did not specify whether it referred to LNG or gas demand and did not give a time period for the length of supply. The deal was signed during a visit to the Turkish capital by Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani on 16 July.

Yildiz said last month that cargoes from Qatar received under the strip deal would be delivered in November, January, February and March.

Turkey has sought to negotiate a long-term LNG contract with Qatar but has so far failed to reach an agreement. Turkey had said it would prefer cargoes to be indexed to European gas hubs, while Qatar has pushed for prices comparable with those paid by its Asia-Pacific customers.

Turkey buys spot LNG in addition to long-term contracted supply in the winter when demand rises. State-owned Botas bought five LNG cargoes from Qatar for $350mn in December last year, which were delivered between December 2013 and March 2014. It also bought three spot cargoes — two from Norway and one re-export from the Netherlands — which were delivered between December and January.

Botas has long-term contracts to import LNG equivalent to 4.4bn m³/yr of pipeline gas from Algeria and 1.2bn m³/yr from Nigeria. The contract with Algeria's state-owned Sonatrach is due for renewal in October, but a final deal has not been reached because of Turkey's concern over delays to the delivery of cargoes.

Almost 40 firms hold licences to import spot LNG in Turkey, but only Botas and private-sector Egegaz are active in the market because of regulatory barriers and high prices.

sb/kww/kw/ms

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19/12/25

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18/12/25

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18/12/25

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18/12/25

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