The construction of the Russian-Turkish natural gas hub is difficult to meet expectations

In the week of October 13~19, discussions between Russia and Turkey on the establishment of a Turkish gas hub surfaced again
.
On October 13, Turkey announced the establishment of a gas hub in the Thrace region, which is expected to be completed
in 2025.
On October 17, Gazprom President Miller said that after the completion of the Turkish gas hub, it will undertake the entire gas transmission volume
of the "Nord Stream" pipeline.
On October 19, Turkey also said that it had reached an agreement with Russia on the construction of a gas hub, through which Europe could use Russian gas
.
However, the author believes that although Russia and Turkey are very active in establishing a gas hub, in fact, it is difficult for this gas hub to meet the expectations of
Russia and Turkey.

The core problem with the Turkish gas hub is that Russia sends gas to Turkey, and its end user is still the EU
.
The EU's largest gas users are industrially developed countries
such as Germany, France, and Italy.
The Nord Stream pipeline is important because it reaches Germany, while the existing Turkish Stream and Blue Stream pipelines reach Bulgaria for the first EU country, which is "108,000 miles"
away from industrially developed countries.
This makes the strategic importance of Russia's detour to Europe via Turkey
.
According to the German Institute for International Political and Security Affairs, in 2020, the EU consumed 394 billion cubic meters of natural gas, but only 5 billion cubic meters were transported to the European market through Turkey, accounting for 1.
2%
of the total.
This means that even if a gas hub is built, the scale of possible future transportation is limited
.
In addition, the cost of building new natural gas infrastructure is very high
.
Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Demmez said: "The gas hub is technically feasible, but it needs to be evaluated and studied
in many aspects.
”

Even if the Turkish gas hub is finally built and can expand gas exports, whether Europe will "buy it" is a big question
.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently said that it "makes no sense" to build a natural gas hub between Russia and Turkey, because the EU will not increase natural gas imports
from Russian sources at all.
A senior researcher at a European think tank also analyzed that Turkey's potential to become a natural gas hub will not come from the supply side, but from the demand side
.
At present, the EU is still seeking the "de-Russification" of gas supplies, and it has achieved some results
.
The EU is indeed at risk of energy shortages at present, but with the current EU plan, its natural gas import diversification measures can be fully achieved by 2025, when the EU's natural gas imports from Russia will be very low
.
From this point of view, the Turkish gas hub is of little
significance.