Oil in Turkey

Health and environmental impact

Exhaust from diesel-fuelled lorries pollutes roads with nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and soot. Istanbul airports also pollute.

Unlike the Mediterranean the Black Sea is not an emission control area; air pollution is emitted from ships in Turkish Black Sea ports. Maritime incidents in the Turkish Straits have resulted in oil spills. Air pollution from ships burning heavy fuel oil near cities is a problem in some places, such as Mersin. Electrification of some ferries is being considered.

Oil production in Russia causes methane leaks into the atmosphere. Because the international greenhouse gas inventory standard is production-based, this is accounted for in Russia's greenhouse gas emissions rather than those of Turkey.

Oil and gas production in southeast Turkey is estimated by Climate Trace to have emitted over two million tonnes of greenhouse gas in 2025.

Transport

Diesel fuel imported from Russia is shipped to Turkey from the Black Sea ports of Novorossiisk, Tuapse and Taman. Only China and India buy more Russian oil than Turkey.

The Kirkuk–Ceyhan oil pipeline has a capacity of 1.5 million barrels a day (mbd). However Iraq consistently did not delivered the agreed 1.5 mbd, and in 2026 a one year agreement was signed for maximum 750 thousand mbd, perhaps due to continued negotiation after Iraq won an arbitration case that oil from Kirkuk is controlled by the Iraqi central government not the Kurdistan region. Russian and Caspian oil is transported by ship through the Bosporus. In 2005, an oil-spill response law was passed in Turkey, and in 2022, oil-tanker insurance was made compulsory. As well as drillships, there are two seismic ships.

Turkey's oil imports from Russia increased after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Union (EU) has banned direct imports of oil products from Russia since 2023, but indirect imports continue as of 2024. As of 2023, Turkey consumes large quantities of cheap Russian diesel, which may be freeing up diesel from Turkish refineries to be exported to the EU. Oil tankers from Novorossiysk deliver to Korfez and Aliağa, near Turkey's third-biggest city İzmir. In October 2022, almost half of Russia's Black Sea crude was sent to Turkey but it was unclear whether the EU oil price cap would affect Turkey. Some Russian oil goes through Dörtyol terminal in Hatay. Most Russian diesel exports go to Turkey because the EU has sanctioned such imports.

There is a port at Aliağa called Nemrut Bay. The Kirkuk–Ceyhan oil pipeline has a capacity of 1.6 mbd and the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline 1 mbd. However the Kirkuk pipeline contract expires July 2026. Most exports from the petroleum industry in Azerbaijan transit Turkey because their light oil fetches a premium price on the world market. A small amount is shipped from Kazakhstan over the Caspian to the BTC pipeline in Azerbaijan. In 2024 protesters against the war in Gaza called for transit of crude and refined products to Israel to be stopped.

Refining and storage

Turkey's largest oil refiner is Tüpraş with four refineries. The newest refinery is Star Aegean, which is also in Aliağa and has over half the market for petroleum products. Turkish oil's sulfur content is generally high so refineries are being upgraded to meet Mediterranean shipping sulfur limits, which may be cut from 0.5% to 0.1%, possibly in 2025. Together, the five refineries have a capacity of over 400 million tons a year (815,000 mbd) as of 2022. More jet fuel is produced than the country consumes, so it is exported. Although refineries prefer to produce diesel rather than jet fuel, half of the country's diesel has to be imported. There is a strategic reserve of crude.

Retail and consumption

There is a biennial trade fair in Istanbul. In 2022, 28 billion litres of diesel and 4 billion litres of petrol were sold in Turkey. Seventy percent of cars registered in 2022 were petrol, 18% diesel and 9% hybrid; and of cars on the road that year, 37% were diesel, 35% LPG and 27% petrol. In mid 2023 the retail price of a litre of petrol was 24 lira (a tad under 1 USD at that time so slightly less than the USA price) and diesel cost slightly less. The government says that it varies the special consumption tax to try and smooth out retail price variations due to oil price and exchange rate fluctuations.

Jet fuel cost the equivalent of 55 US cents a litre at that time. Over one hundred thousand barrels of jet fuel are sold in a typical year. Less bunker fuel was sold in 2022, because of the decline in shipping due the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Economics

According to some analysts, the cost of imported oil and gas is a key weakness in the economy of Turkey. Turkey buys Urals crude from Russia because it is cheaper than oil from other countries. Russian oil is refined and the refined products are sold abroad.

Subsidies and taxes

In Turkey, tax levied on diesel is lower than that on petrol, and it has been suggested by the Istanbul International Centre for Energy and Climate at Sabancı University that taxes on diesel and petrol should be more-closely aligned with each other to minimise imports, because Turkey has enough petrol-refining capacity.

In 2022 the Turkish Energy Minister said Turkey and Algeria would create a joint oil-and-gas-exploration company.

Geopolitics

In 2019, the European Council objected to the Turkish drilling activities in the eastern Mediterranean.

Unlike several European countries, which stopped buying oil and gas from Russia or were cut off after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations with Russia are such Turkey continues to buy both commodities from Russia. Turkey can consume discounted Russian diesel, and also buys discounted Russian crude, which it refines and sells legally as of 2022 as Turkish at the global price. For example, Shell and Vitol are claimed to have done this with SOCAR and Tüpraş, although there is no proof the purchased products were refined from Russian crude. Crude from different countries is often blended at refineries so as of 2023, it is not possible to tell where a barrel of diesel originated from; NGO Global Witness said the EU should ban products from refineries that refine Russian crude.

It is sometimes difficult for media in Turkey to fully report on energy geopolitics. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in 2022 Turkey could not join sanctions on Russia because of import dependency. TPAO hopes to explore for oil and gas in Libyan waters, and a memorandum of understanding has been agreed with the Libyan government.

The two main political parties in Northern Iraq the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) would have to agree for a new pipeline to take the shortest route because oil would come from wells in the PUK-controlled area and pass through a KDP-controlled area. In 2022, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck to stop a new pipeline.

In 2023, the International Court of Arbitration ruled Turkey could not import from Iraqi Kurdistan without the consent of the Iraqi central government. Sales from Iraq have been affected by discounted Russian crude. Turkey is helping Somalia drill.

Reducing fossil fuel share of energy

Turkey intends to increase the share of renewables and nuclear power in the national energy mix. According to a May 2022 report from think tank Ember, wind power and solar power saved Turkey seven billion dollars on gas imports in the preceding 12 months. It is hoped further electrification, of sectors such as road transport will reduce Turkey's dependency on imported oil.

History

During the early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire granted a concession allowing William Knox D'Arcy to explore oil fields in its territories which, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, became the modern countries Turkey and Iraq. In 1912, D'Arcy and other European partners founded the Turkish Petroleum Company, which was later renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company.

In late Ottoman times, permission to explore for oil in the İskenderun area was granted to the Grand Vizier Kamil Pasha and later to Ahmet Necati Bey. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, oil and gas fields in Mosul vilayet—of which Kirkuk was a part—were lost and since then, Turkey has had to rely on imports. In 1926, the Turkish government took over oil exploration rights. In 2001 natural gas was legally separated from oil. The General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration was formed. The first oil imports from Russia arrived in 1986 and from Azerbaijan in 2007.

Between 2000 and 2020, Turkey's share of imported energy increased from just over 50% to 70%. In 2022, Turkey's oil consumption decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting travel restrictions. Also in 2022, Middle Eastern crude imports were displaced by imports of discounted Russian crude, which tripled in the period from before the Ukraine invasion to 1 January 2023.