Turkey's spot LNG imports may halve year-on-year in January-March following the deals signed at the Gastech conference in Milan on 9-10 September.
The Turkish energy ministry and Botas signed eight LNG supply agreements on 9-10 September with global firms BP, Shell, Eni, Sefe, Equinor, Cheniere, Jera and Hartree.
Although timelines and pricing remain unclear, initial information suggests the new deals could add LNG supply of up to 14.4bn m³ of pipeline gas equivalent Turkey's supply mix in 2026-28. Turkish energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar said yesterday that some deliveries could take place in November or December, but traders believe the bulk the supply will be delivered from early 2026.
Demand growth to decide spot LNG needs
The pace of Turkey's gas demand growth will partly determine how many spot LNG cargoes will be needed to cover demand.
Turkey's gas consumption rose by 21pc on year in the first eight months of 2025. But some of the increase was down to unusually colder weather than average in the first quarter.
Turkey's gas demand increased by 14pc year on year on 1-7 September, according to the latest energy ministry data. And some traders have estimated demand at 60bn m³ in this year as a whole, which implies a more conservative 13pc increase.
Assuming that consumption rises by 13pc in the first quarter, and factoring in increased domestic production, elevated Turkmen flows from next year and storage withdrawals flat year on year, Turkey's combined LNG and pipeline gas import needs could reach 21bn m³ in the first quarter. This would be up from 18.9bn m³ in January-March this year, based on regulator EPDK data.
LNG accounted for 31pc of Turkey's imports in first-quarter 2024 and 44pc in first-quarter 2025. But LNG might retain a share of around 44pc in first-quarter 2026, especially given uncertainty around the renewal of two Botas agreements with Russia's Gazprom for a combined 21.75bn m³/yr that expire at the end of 2025. This implies 9.24bn m³ of LNG demand, equivalent to 103mn m³/d of sendout. Turkey's five LNG import terminals — three floating storage and regasification units and two land-based — have a combined regasification capacity of 161mn m³/d, according to grid operator Botas.
Botas already holds LNG delivery agreements for the full 2026 calendar year with Algeria's Sonatrach and Oman LNG for 5.8bn m³ of pipeline gas equivalent. The new deals could collectively add up to 5bn m³ in 2026, potentially raising total contracted LNG supply to up to 10.8bn m³.
And Botas has a 4bn m³/yr agreement with Shell and a 1.6bn m³/yr deal with TotalEnergies starting from January 2027. Despite the Algeria contract expiring in October 2027, Botas could potentially hold roughly 16.4bn m³ of contracted LNG supply that year.
In each of 2023 and 2024, 46pc of Turkey's annual LNG imports arrived in the first quarter. Assuming the same distribution next year, Turkey could receive around 5bn m³ of the 10.8bn m³/yr contracted for the full year from Sonatrach, Oman LNG and the eight new deals made this week.
This could leave remaining LNG import needs of around 4.24bn m³ in January-March, which translates to roughly 46 spot LNG deliveries based on average delivery sizes of 91mn m³ in the first half of this year. Turkey had received almost double this number of spot cargoes at 78 in the same period of 2024.
