Turkey's steel industry is already suffering from high costs and low demand for finished steel, and has only been made worse by natural gas restrictions.
In the middle of winter, when natural gas consumption is approaching record levels, problems with gas supply arose. Turkish gas supplier Botas reports that the volume of gas purchased from Iran has decreased by two-thirds as of January 17, and on January 20 it was reset to zero. Iran told Botas that there was a "technical failure" and the gas supply would be unavailable for ten days.
Subsequently, Botas sent a letter to industrial plants and gas cycle power plants that produce electricity, saying that this would reduce the flow of natural gas by 40%.
The sent letter is addressed to enterprises with a daily consumption of more than 300 thousand cubic meters of natural gas. It states: “Due to the increase in natural gas consumption due to seasonal conditions and the cessation of natural gas supplies from foreign sources, our country is experiencing some difficulties in maintaining a balance of supply and demand. In order to eliminate the difficulties that have arisen in maintaining the balance of demand and supply of natural gas in our country, it became necessary to take and implement the necessary additional measures.
“As of 08:00 on January 21, until further notice, gas consumption by enterprises is limited to a volume corresponding to 60% of its average daily gas consumption,” the message says.
This situation will hit the electric arc furnace steelmakers, not the blast furnaces.
Comment from a Turkish electric steel plant: “Now we face the risk of not meeting our contractual obligations. This will delay orders. It's not good considering we struggled to get them."
