Turkey as a major gas transit hub country

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2008

Öğrenci: TAYFUN YENER UMUCU

Eş Danışman: MUSTAFA VERŞAN KÖK, MELİHA ALTUNIŞIK

Özet:

The demand for natural gas has been growing much faster than the demand for other primary resources and it is expected that the European Union (EU)’s dependency on natural gas will continue to grow. For this reason gas supply security policy has been more important lately than before on the European political agenda in securing a smooth supply of gas. According to the EU external policy directives, EU natural gas energy security can be enhanced by diversifying geographical origin as well as transit routes. Turkey in that concept was assumed as one of the important transit hub countries to reach the new sources in the Azerbaijan and Central Asia region as well as in the Middle East. However, the transportation of gas from this region to Europe through the new route via Turkey has become very complex issue in terms of technical and political point of view arising from suppliers within their export policy and from the U.S’s bilateral sanctions. This dissertation argues that under the present circumstances especially due to the difficulties in the supplier side being a major transit gas hub country will be very difficult for Turkey combined with the increasing internal gas demand in the next decade.