TurkStream will compete in a complex Balkan gas market

Significance

With TurkStream, Russia has opened a new export route to the EU through South-eastern Europe under the Black Sea: Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia are receiving Russian gas through Turkey. Russian gas giant Gazprom is now less dependent on transit through Ukraine, although the larger Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic is being delayed and the Ukrainian route will continue serving Central Europe for the time being.

Impacts

• Plans for a floating storage regasification unit at Alexandroupolis in north-eastern Greece will make headway.
• Access to LNG will give customers leverage over Gazprom when long-term supply contracts are renegotiated in the 2020s.
• As TurkStream brings not new but rerouted gas (except for new customers) it will not raise dependence on Russia.