Iran's Oil Exports to Turkey Surge

Official statistics from Turkey indicate that Iran's oil exports to the country have increased by at least 50% in the second half of this year compared to the first half of 2016. According to the Turkish Energy Regulatory Authority, the average daily oil exports from Iran to Turkey reached over 152,000 barrels between July and October, while this figure was around 106,000 barrels in the first half of the year. Reuters also recently reported that Iran's oil exports to Turkey peaked at 190,000 barrels in December, which is higher than the pre-sanction levels. Before the sanctions that were lifted with the JCPOA, Iran exported 180,000 barrels of crude oil to Turkey daily, but this figure dropped to about 105,000 barrels between 2012 and 2015. Meanwhile, despite the surge in Iran's oil exports to Turkey, the Islamic Republic has kept its gas exports to its western neighbor stable. According to the official statistics from the Turkish Energy Ministry, Iran exported a total of 6.14 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in the first ten months of 2016, which remained unchanged compared to the same period last year. Last year, Iran had a total gas export of about 8.6 billion cubic meters to Turkey. Turkey was also one of Iran's most important electricity importers, but the Turkish Energy Regulatory Authority's statistics indicate that in the second half of this year, Turkey completely halted its electricity imports from Iran. According to this report, Iran supplied about 445 million kilowatt-hours of electricity to Turkey in just five months of 2016, after which Turkey completely stopped purchasing electricity from Iran. According to the annual report from Iran's Ministry of Energy, the country had nearly ten billion kilowatt-hours of electricity exports last solar year, with Turkey being a customer for over 17% of that. Last year, Turkey imported a total of 1.72 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from Iran.