BOTAS Petroleum Pipeline Co. has committed to buying up to 2.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year for 10 years from Exxon Mobil Corp., Türkiye’s state-owned oil and gas distributor said Thursday. The agreement was signed as part of the visit of Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar to the United States, during which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies also launched an energy cooperation platform. “We signed a cooperation agreement on LNG trade between BOTAS and ExxonMobil in Washington, where we came to make various contacts”, Bayraktar said on social media platform X. “The USA is one of the important countries we already receive LNG from. With this agreement, which is planned to be long-term, we are taking another step in diversifying our resources”.
Türkiye, which relies on imports for more than half of its energy needs according to official figures, gets most of its natural gas from Russia. “The versatile structure of Türkiye’s energy strategy and its energy import dependency brings international relations into prominence in this field”, Türkiye’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources says in a statement on its website. “One of the main goals of Türkiye’s energy strategy is to diversify routes and resources to strengthen its energy supply security”. Following diversification efforts, Türkiye’s imports of Russian gas fell in the aftermath of the war in NATO-backed Ukraine, from over 53 percent between 2013 and 2018 to 39.5 percent in 2022, based on figures from Türkiye’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority.
BOTAS called the agreement with Texas-based ExxonMobil “strategic”. ExxonMobil is working on producing LNG in the U.S. through its Golden Pass LNG export project in Sabine Pass, Texas, co-owned with QatarEnergy. Expected to come onstream this year, the $10 billion project has a planned capacity of 18 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of LNG according to the implementing joint venture.
While the Biden administration has paused pending decisions on LNG export to countries with no free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S., which would include Turkey, the ExxonMobil project previously secured a permit to export to non-FTA nations. The project is allowed to send up to 18.1 MMtpa of LNG to states without an FTA with the U.S., up by 2.5 MMtpa from the original authorization, according to a press release by ExxonMobil April 27, 2022, announcing the expanded non-FTA export capacity. Meanwhile as part of the Turkish energy minister’s visit to the U.S., the two countries launched the US-Türkiye Energy and Climate Dialog (ECD).
“DOE and MENR reaffirmed that a strategic energy relationship between the United States and Türkiye would contribute to the transition toward a cleaner and greener energy future, provide a structured opportunity to increase security of energy supply, and advance bilateral economic and trade goals”, said a joint statement by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Türkey’s MENR.
“DOE and MENR welcomed the establishment of the ECD, which aims to bring the United States and Türkiye together at both senior and working levels to combat climate change and promote energy security, while strengthening their economic and political ties. “The ECD aims to facilitate technical cooperation across energy and climate issues on best practices, joint development of effective policies, bilateral trade and investment, and joint research and development”. The ECD will have four working groups on clean energy, energy efficiency and grid improvements; natural gas including LNG; climate change and clean energy finance; and regional cooperation, according to the statement, shared on the DOE website.
Source: rigzone.com