Private Turkish importers at the end of 2019 owed Gazprom about $2 billion for failure to take gas volumes at the condition of take-or-pay, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). According to the newspaper, buyers chose less than 15% of the agreed purchase volumes. In the current year, the debt likely will only increase as Turkey continues to reduce purchases of Russian gas on the background of the coronavirus and the availability of cheaper LNG supplies.Seven private Turkish importers at the end of 2019 are significantly reduced selection of the Russian gas of the minimum contract level (for which there is an obligation of “take or pay” take-or-pay) and the result was owe Gazprom about $2 billion, announced June 15, The Wall Street Journal.These buyers chose less than 15% of the total contract volume of 10 billion cubic meters, said the newspaper’s sources. Now the parties are negotiating with Gazprom, trying to resolve the situation without litigation. In “Gazprom” have refused comments. Under the obligations of the buyers released the guarantee of Turkish (mainly state) banks for $600 million, says the WSJ. However, traditionally, all undrawn amounts of take-or-pay transferred to the next periods (the so-called make-up gas) — the buyer must pay 70% of the undrawn amounts at once and gets a chance to pick them up over the next five years, paying the remaining 30%.Turkey remains the second largest consumer of gas of “Gazprom” in Europe, but in 2019 Ankara by 54% reduced purchases of Russian gas to 15.5 billion cubic meters. At the same time, the country is stepping up purchases of cheaper LNG. And now, amid the pandemic of gas purchases from Russia continue to decline in the first quarter of 2020, supply of gas year-on-year fell by 17% to 3,757 billion cubic meters.Tatiana Dataexport “Gazprom” in the CIS countries against the background of the spread of coronavirus maybe in 2020 to fall by 16.3% to 166.6 billion cubic meters. This is the lowest level in 2015. The average annual price, expect the company will be reduced even more — by 37% to $133 per 1 thousand cubic meters. In this regard, “Gazprom” plans to reduce capital investment by 20% and to defer some projects.Read more
