* TurkStream gas pipeline, Akkuyu nuclear plant build at
risk
* Gas supplies won't be affected, says official
Moscow may cancel a number of "important joint projects" with Ankara
after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane Tuesday, Russian prime
minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday, with market experts raising
concerns over the future of the TurkStream gas pipeline.
On Tuesday, a Russian Su-24 military place was shot down by a
Turkish F-16 air fighter jet near the Turkish-Syrian border. Turkish
authorities said the Russian jet had violated its airspace, which
Russian authorities denied, saying the jet was hit some 4 kilometers
inside Syrian territory.
The incident "has undermined good neighbor relations between Russia
and Turkey, including in the economic and humanitarian spheres,"
Medvedev said, according to a statement posted at the governmental
web site. "It would be difficult to make up for this damage."
"Abandoning a number of important joint projects as well as
Turkish companies losing their positions on the Russian market could
be a direct consequence of [the incident]," Medvedev said, without
elaborating further.
President Vladimir Putin Tuesday condemned the action by Turkish
forces, calling it "a stab in the back" and promised "serious
consequences."
JOINT PROJECTS
Deliveries of Russian gas to Turkey are unlikely to be affected by
the incident since Russia will want to maintain its reputation as a
stable gas supplier.
Supplies will continue in line with contracts, Russia's deputy
energy minister Anatoly Yanovsky said late Tuesday, Russia's TASS
reported.
But a major gas pipeline project across the Black Sea, TurkStream,
may fall victim.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov Tuesday said the authorities would
"thoroughly analyze" the situation around the pipeline project, when
asked whether it would be cancelled, according to local media
reports.
Turkey and Russia have long enjoyed close relations in the energy
sphere, with Turkey importing up to 30 Bcm/year of Russian gas.
Turkey is the second-biggest consumer of the Russian pipeline gas
after Germany.
In addition, Russia's Rosatom holds a contract to develop Turkey's
first nuclear power plant, a 4.8 GW facility at Akkuyu on Turkey's
eastern Mediterranean coast.
ARBITRATION
However, relations between the two countries have been strained
recently, with the two sides failing to agree over the development
of the 63 Bcm/year TurkStream pipeline, which Moscow wants to route
across the Black Sea and through Turkey's European province of
Thrace.
Turkey has agreed in principle to the development of two of the four
parallel lines that would make up the pipeline system, but has yet
to ratify the agreement. In return, Moscow has failed to implement
an agreed 10.25% discount on the price Botas pays for the gas it
imports. Turkey earlier this month said it had instituted an
international arbitration case over Gazprom's failure to implement
the discount.
Russian sources earlier this year did not rule out signing the final
agreement on TurkStream in December, with Moscow insisting on the
pipeline deal and discount being signed simultaneously.
Turkey is not dependent on oil deliveries from Russia but controls
the Turkish Straits, a key route for Russian crude deliveries to the
Mediterranean from the Black Sea ports.
Crude deliveries via Russia's key export port in the south,
Novorossiisk, averaged around 466,790 b/d in the first 10 months of
the year, accounting for 10.5% of the Russian total crude exports in
the period.
Turkey has full control over the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits
under the Montreux Convention, which envisages free shipping of
civic vessels in peacetime.
--Nadia Rodova, nadia.rodova@platts.com
--Edited by Jonathan Fox,
jonathan.fox@platts.com
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