The Turkish-Iranian gas relationship: Politically successful, commercially problematic

Iran-Turkey gas trade is the only large scale operating pipeline gas export to Europe from the Caspian and Middle East region. Given the interest in developing much larger pipeline exports to Europe from this region it is therefore of considerable importance.

Elin Kinnander's paper traces the political and commercial aspects of this trade. From a political standpoint both sides continue to hail their gas relationship as an outstanding success which will increase greatly in the future. However the commercial story is entirely different with periodic interruptions by both sides and price disagreements leading to international arbitration. Despite the political success of the trade these commercial problems raise questions as to how large and how fast any expansion of exports will be.

Read the article here or go to the website of OIES.