Türkiye plans TANAP-style electricity corridor with Azerbaijan, minister says

Türkiye and Azerbaijan are expanding their energy partnership beyond oil and gas into electricity transmission and green energy corridors, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Monday.

Speaking at the opening of Baku Energy Week, Bayraktar said Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bulgaria and Southeast European countries were working to strengthen regional energy connectivity.

“We are going to create the electricity version of TANAP,” Bayraktar said, referring to the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline that carries Azerbaijani gas to Europe through Türkiye.

Bayraktar said flagship projects including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the South Caucasus Pipeline, TANAP and the STAR refinery had transformed the region’s energy architecture and made a major contribution to European energy security.

He said the Igdir-Nakhchivan gas pipeline, commissioned last year, had strengthened energy security in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave. He also noted that electricity and gas supplies to Syria, launched through a joint Türkiye-Azerbaijan initiative, were contributing to the country’s reconstruction and regional stability.

Bayraktar said significant opportunities remained to expand cooperation on exports of Turkmen gas through Azerbaijan and Türkiye and to increase the use of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline for transporting Kazakhstan’s energy resources to Western markets.

“Energy security today is no longer defined solely by access to resources,” he said, adding that diversified supplies, strong infrastructure and regional cooperation had become increasingly important.

Bayraktar said renewable energy accounted for around 65% of Türkiye’s installed power capacity, placing the country among Europe’s top five and 11th globally.

He added that Türkiye expects natural gas production from its Sakarya field in the Black Sea to reach 7.5 billion cubic metres annually by the end of this year and aims to commission the first unit of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant before year-end.