Turkey is confident to win the natural gas price dispute with Russia in the arbitration court, Turkey's acting Energy Minister Ali Riza Alaboyun told Anadolu Agency Sunday.
Alaboyun had announced on Oct. 27 that gas price dispute between Turkey and Russia is taken to the International Court of Arbitration when Russian gas company Gazprom failed to respond to Turkey's request to raise the gas discount rate more than 10.25 percent.
The same day, Russian media reported Gazprom’s representative Sergey Kupriyanov saying that the two countries can solve the dispute before the arbitration court makes a ruling on the case.
"We find this Gazprom statement positive," Alaboyun told, and added "However we have not received any official request from Gazprom about such a statement."
"We already have a 10.25 percent discount from Russia. But, we applied to the court in order to get a higher gas discount rate, and we are sure that we will win the case," he stressed.
The energy minister noted that Turkey's discount demand from the court is higher than the 10.25 percent rate Russia had previously proposed.
On Dec. 2014, Gazprom announced a six percent discount for Turkey's gas purchases from Russia. When Turkey demanded a higher disccount rate, Gazprom raised it to 10.25 percent, but this was never realized between Turkish state-owned pipeline company BOTAS and Gazprom.
Since there was no action taken on the implementation of the discount after December last year, Turkey practiced its right to take the case to the arbitration court after this June, based on a clause in the gas trade agreement with Gazprom.
In October, Alaboyun had said Russia ignored Turkey's calls for the price settlement since June, which led Ankara to take the dispute to the court. He had also reminded that both countries had taken cases to arbitration court before, but those were settled before the court processes had begun.
Alaboyun told Sunday that despite Turkey had called for Russia to ink the 10.25 percent discount agreement, the deal could not be signed.
"The arbitration process will take some time. We determined our arbitrator, and informed Russia about it. Now, they will also determine their arbitrator," he said.
Turkey, which is the second biggest consumer of Russian gas after Germany, imports around 30 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia annually via two pipelines, the Blue Stream and Western Line.
- Turkish Stream
On Dec. 2014, Moscow had proposed to build a third gas pipeline to Turkey, dubbed as Turkish Stream, that would run under the Black Sea.
However, the negotiations about the project were put on pause until after Turkey's national re-elections on Nov. 1 and a new government is formed. On Nov. 1, Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AK Party) clinched victory to form a single-party government.
"The results of the election will resolve the uncertainties about Turkish Stream," Alaboyun told, and stated that some of the decisions about the project will depend on the intergovernmental agreement between the two countries.
Reminding
that Turkish Stream is planned to carry 15.75 bcm of Russian gas to
Turkey, and 14 bcm of Russian gas already comes from Western Line, the
energy minister said an intergovernmental deal about the capacity
difference between the two pipelines must first be ratified by the
parliament.
(Anadolu Agency)
