Speaking to Bloomberg HT at the summit of Davos, International Power Agency Leader (UEA) Fatih Birol, referring to his climax pronunciations in May, said, “As we really said, we faced the biggest power crisis in history and we are still in it. It still maintains its seriousness; However, countries that trade with Russia, especially Europe, have started to take their measures.
“These countries started to import gas from countries other than Russia. Gas imports from Azerbaijan, Norway, America and Qatar increased. The share of renewable power is growing steadily. Unexpectedly, Belgium and Germany extended the life of the nuclear power plants they were about to shut down. With all these developments and the effect of the hot weather, Europe got over the risk of being weak. On the other hand, next winter may be more difficult. For the first time in 40 years, import demand in China fell last year; but with the opening, China will import a significant amount of LNG from the markets. Gas imports from Russia will come to zero. In line with these two reasons, the winter of 2023-2024 is still a risky period,” he said.
Birol said, “Russia’s warehouses are not enough, there will be a shortage of natural gas. There is a tightness in the LNG market, which will increase even more this year. As less LNG is supplied this year, demand will be higher and its price will rise. OPEC would increase production when the world economy was in trouble, and decreased it for the first time.”
In his assessment of Turkey, Birol said, “When we look at it from the point of view of natural gas, there are two valuable developments. One of them is the natural gas that will come from the Sakarya basin. The second is that Turkey has brought a large natural gas storage facility to the agenda. This is extremely valuable for our power security. I think the steps taken on the nuclear issue are very accurate.
