Valdai Club

While the laying of deep water pipes for Nord Stream 2 has started a few months ago, the pipe welding of the final joint of TurkStream’s second line was done on November 19, commanded jointly by Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of the Republic of Turkey. Hence both projects, Nordstream 2 and TurkStream, are going ahead rapidly to supply gas to Europe at the end of next year and appear to be unstoppable.

On September 23, Algeria hosted a meeting of the OPEC+ ministerial monitoring committee, which discussed the overall situation on the oil market. Earlier US President Donald Trump called on OPEC to reduce oil prices immediately, naming it a “monopoly” and accusing it of manipulating the market.

The Turkish Stream pipeline project seems to be the most viable option for delivering Russian natural gas to EU bypassing the unstable Ukraine, Valdai Club expert Gurkan Kumbaroglu believes.

The timing of Turkey’s reconciliation with Russia and Israel intensifies the expectation for enhanced trilateral collaboration in all fields with major energy projects gaining momentum and providing hope for a better, peaceful future.

Large and rapid changes in the price of crude oil have correlated with major geopolitical and economic crises globally.

Russia is a reliable and cost-effective supplier for Turkey, in comparison with the prices offered by others. Turkey, in its turn, is an important consumer for Russia. The Turkish Stream project has its spot in the agenda and unites the interests of both states.

Turkish Stream is a 63 bcm pipeline project consisting of four parallel pipelines on the offshore section, but Turkish permission for the engineering surveys in the Turkish Exclusive Economic Zone and within Turkey’s territorial waters has only been granted for the first line of the project.

As a non-EU country, Turkey is not obliged to obey the EU competition law that made the realization of the South Stream project impossible. Accordingly the South Stream project has been redirected by Russia towards Turkey so as to end at the border to Europe.