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Türkiye to Expand Gas Export Hub to Europe, Resumes Iraqi Oil Flow

Türkiye's Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar at a press conference in Ankara (Reuters) t
Türkiye's Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar at a press conference in Ankara (Reuters) t
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Türkiye to Expand Gas Export Hub to Europe, Resumes Iraqi Oil Flow

Türkiye's Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar at a press conference in Ankara (Reuters) t
Türkiye's Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar at a press conference in Ankara (Reuters) t

Türkiye believes its presence is indispensable to the success of energy and transport corridors in the region, revealing plans to expand its gas infrastructure to facilitate the transit of Russian gas to Europe.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan asserted that effective, sustainable operation of energy transportation corridors without Türkiye's involvement is not possible.

Speaking at the 10th World Turkish Business Council (DTIK) Congress in Istanbul, Fidan said: "We hope to move into the implementation phase of the Development Road project, which is of great importance for prosperity and stability in the Middle East within the next few months."

He highlighted ongoing intense negotiations with Iraq, the UAE, and Qatar about the project.

Fidan emphasized the significance of new trade routes, especially in light of recent geopolitical developments, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the rivalry between the United States and China, or more broadly, the West and China.

He noted that these developments have revived discussions of other trade routes previously considered theoretically, emphasizing that trade routes don't merely cater to commerce but also reflect geostrategic competition.

- A gas hub

Meanwhile, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar stated that Türkiye plans to expand its gas infrastructure as it lays the groundwork to establish a gas exchange from which countries in southeast Europe can source gas.

Following its incursion into Ukraine in February of the previous year, Russia proposed setting up a gas hub in Türkiye last year to replace lost sales to Europe.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have given directives to commence the project.

They discussed specific steps during their recent meeting in Sochi after the project's delay due to the earthquake catastrophe in Türkiye last February and the presidential and parliamentary elections in May.

Türkiye plans to expand its gas infrastructure in northwest Türkiye's Thrace region, connecting LNG gasification terminals and an upgraded storage facility in Silivri, west of Istanbul.

Bayraktar told a press briefing on Thursday that gas coming from Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia through pipelines could also feed into this hub and be priced in a local gas exchange.

- Iraqi Oil Exports Resumption

Furthermore, Bayraktar confirmed that Iraq's northern oil export route through Türkiye will soon be ready to resume operation after checks on pipeline maintenance and repairs to flood damage.

Bayraktar mentioned that an inspection of the oil pipeline is complete, and it will soon be "technically" ready for operations.

Türkiye halted flows on Iraq's northern oil export route on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages for unauthorized exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) between 2014 and 2018.

"As of today, the independent surveyor completed their survey, and now they're preparing their report," Bayraktar said without mentioning a date for resumption of oil flows.

Iraq and Türkiye previously agreed to wait until maintenance works were complete before resuming the pipeline that contributes about 0.5 percent of the global oil supply. Sources said oil flows are not expected to start before October.

The Kurdistan Regional Government lost roughly $4 billion in lost exports.

- Nuclear power plant

The Minister revealed that the ongoing negotiations with Russia, China, and South Korea regarding constructing a second nuclear power station in Thrace, northwestern Türkiye, are progressing.

"We came to a very important point that we need to finalize [the deal] in a few months," said Bayraktar.

He also pointed to ongoing talks with Russia concerning the third nuclear power station in the Sinop.

Bayraktar said Türkiye needs to produce 20 gigawatts from the nuclear power plants in the future.

Russia is currently constructing the Akkuyu station, Türkiye's first nuclear power plant, situated in Mersin.

Bayraktar revealed that Türkiye aims to establish a broader nuclear ecosystem that requires atomic power to transition to clean energy by 2050.

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Business

Sources: New Syria-Iraq Crude Pipeline Still Years Away

FILE PHOTO: A worker checks an oil pipeline at Nahr Bin Umar oil field, north of Basra, Iraq March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A worker checks an oil pipeline at Nahr Bin Umar oil field, north of Basra, Iraq March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo
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Sources: New Syria-Iraq Crude Pipeline Still Years Away

FILE PHOTO: A worker checks an oil pipeline at Nahr Bin Umar oil field, north of Basra, Iraq March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A worker checks an oil pipeline at Nahr Bin Umar oil field, north of Basra, Iraq March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo

Iraq's plans to export oil via a pipeline through Syria to avert future disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz will likely require four years of construction and cost at least $15 billion, sources with knowledge of the project told Reuters.

US officials and energy executives are billing the plan, which is receiving initial support for feasibility studies from a consortium including Chevron, as part of a strategy to reduce the industry's reliance on a waterway that has been largely shut by the Iran war.

"Over the next two years, the strait is going to become irrelevant. It is going to become just another body of water," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week.

While a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas was shipped through Hormuz before the conflict, Bessent said "more than 50% or 70%" of those exports would instead be exported via underground pipelines.

But two sources directly involved in ‌the project told Reuters ‌the plans for the Iraq-Syria pipeline would take twice that long due to the need ‌for ⁠new infrastructure and ⁠could face other hurdles.

Both sources asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

NEW INFRASTRUCTURE TO REPLACE EXISTING WAR-DAMAGED PIPELINE

Iraq has been among the countries most affected by the Hormuz shutdown.

It exported around 3.6 million barrels of oil per day before the war, mainly through Gulf terminals near Basra, but shipped just 35.5 million barrels in total via Hormuz in July, according to state-run oil firm SOMO.

A pipeline linking Iraq's northern Kirkuk region to Syria's Mediterranean port of Banias already exists but was badly damaged by wars in Iraq and Syria and has not been in regular use since the 1980s.

Both sources said the plan would require laying entirely ⁠new infrastructure rather than rehabilitating the existing pipeline and cost at least $15 billion.

While part of the ‌new pipeline would run largely along the same Kirkuk-Banias route, intact sections of ‌that pipeline are not compatible with newly developed specifications and would be unusable, one of the sources said.

The second source said the project ‌would include developing an entirely new integrated crude oil pipeline system that would link Iraq's southern and northern fields to a ‌central hub in Haditha in western Iraq, then onwards to Banias.

The US has welcomed the "rehabilitation and reconstruction" of the pipeline, saying it will have initial transport capacity of 2 million bpd of crude oil.

That would imply a major expansion of the old pipeline's capacity of about 300,000 bpd, which is less than a tenth of the oil volume Iraq exported through the Strait of Hormuz before the Iran war. Iraq has also ‌restarted oil exports from its Kirkuk fields via pipeline to Türkiye’s Ceyhan port with targeted capacity of around 250,000 bpd.

Both sources said work on the Iraq-Syria pipeline would take around ⁠four years, though one added ⁠that the timeline may also need to accommodate clearing old infrastructure and acquiring fresh land use rights from Syria's new administration.

ANOTHER POSSIBLE 'ACCESS TO MARKET' BUT STUDIES STILL NEEDED

Syria and Iraq have both signed separate memorandums of understanding with a consortium comprised of US major Chevron, TI Capital and Qatar's UCC Holding to carry out technical and financial studies in preparation for the project.

Iraq's oil ministry and state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the project and the sources' timeline and cost assessments. TI Capital and UCC Holding did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Chevron pointed to an earlier statement about the preliminary agreement and said it does not comment on details related to commercial matters.

During a press briefing last month, a Chevron executive said the project could offer "another access route to market" through the Mediterranean. The executive said any pipeline would also need to connect to Iraq's southern fields of West Qurna 2 and Nassiriya, which Chevron is in negotiations to enter.

Chevron still needs to complete technical studies to determine whether the existing Iraq-Syria pipeline would need refitting, expanding or rebuilding, the executive said.

The company has not yet given estimates of the project's future export capacity.

"Usually, as these pipelines go, it's not 100% capacity available on day one," the executive said.

Business

China Leads Wave of Clean Power Wastage as Grids Globally Hit Limits

Solar panels at the Dalad Banner Photovaltic Base in Kubuqi desert during organized media tour, in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)
Solar panels at the Dalad Banner Photovaltic Base in Kubuqi desert during organized media tour, in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)
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China Leads Wave of Clean Power Wastage as Grids Globally Hit Limits

Solar panels at the Dalad Banner Photovaltic Base in Kubuqi desert during organized media tour, in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)
Solar panels at the Dalad Banner Photovaltic Base in Kubuqi desert during organized media tour, in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)

China turned away enough clean energy to power Mexico for a year in the six months through June as its grids hit their limits, while networks in many other nations such as Australia and Japan also failed to keep pace with a surging renewables buildout.

Curtailments, or the pre-emptive rejection of wind or solar power because a grid reaches capacity, are emerging as a growing challenge to renewables globally and underscore continued reliance on fossil fuels.

China, the world's top producer of solar power, rejected 360 terawatt-hours (TWh) of clean power from January to June, up 49% from the same period a year earlier, according to a report this month by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and the Center for Research on ‌Energy and Clean ‌Air (CREA).

The report's estimates for curtailments far exceed figures given by the Chinese ‌government.

Insufficient ⁠transmission infrastructure and ⁠supply contracts that guarantee operations of newly built coal-fired power plants in China are forcing the rejection of abundant renewable output, analysts say.

"Curtailment in China is structural, not a temporary bottleneck. We expect curtailment pressure to continue through the rest of this decade," said Yuan Ren, analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Curtailments, along with a new policy that removes a guaranteed fixed price for renewables, have contributed to a 66% drop in new solar installations this year in China. At the same time, China's coal-fired power generation is expected to rise again this year, reversing a first-in-a-decade ⁠decline.

CURTAILMENTS AFFECTING RENEWABLE INVESTMENTS

China's National Energy Administration, which stopped publishing monthly data on ‌curtailment by province in March, said in a statement last ‌month that 8.6% of the country's solar output and 9.1% of its wind output were curtailed in the first half ‌of 2026.

But GEM and CREA estimate China rejected 26.1% of its total wind and solar output in ‌the six months through June, using weather-adjusted data to account for unreported curtailment.

The National Energy Administration did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

With curtailment worsening, it's harder "to do pre-assessment of the financial viability of projects," said Shawn Shuwei Zhang, chief economist at Beijing-based consultancy Draworld Environment Institute.

Clean power investments are already shifting from standalone solar projects towards solar-plus-storage ‌to reduce exposure to curtailment, Wood Mackenzie's Ren said.

CURTAILMENT RISING GLOBALLY

Rising curtailment extends beyond China, to the rest of the Asia Pacific and Europe.

In Australia's ⁠National Electricity Market, curtailments surged ⁠37% to 2.93 TWh, or 7% of its wind and solar output, in the first half of 2026, while Japan's grid rejected 2.35 TWh — a jump of 34% and representing 4% of renewable output, data from their electricity markets showed.

India, the No.3 global solar generator, curtailed 8.13 TWh of solar power in the quarter ended June, its renewable energy minister said. That accounts for 14% of its solar output in the three months through June, grid data showed.

That compared with March quarter curtailment of 0.47 TWh of renewable output that includes both solar and wind, according to energy think tank Ember. Indian solar generation is, however, typically much higher in the June quarter, meaning curtailments will be higher too.

Efficient deployment and an immediate scale-up of battery storage could help stall curtailment globally, Ember analyst Kostantsa Rangelova said, adding that Bulgaria and Chile provided effective models that could be emulated.

"Chile added 4 GWh of batteries in 2025, more than doubling its installed capacity. Most of this new storage was co-located with solar plants, helping reduce curtailment," Rangelova said.

Business

Riyadh Opens Second Real Estate Balance Program With Land Price Cap

Residential neighborhoods in the Saudi capital, Riyadh (SPA) 
Residential neighborhoods in the Saudi capital, Riyadh (SPA) 
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Riyadh Opens Second Real Estate Balance Program With Land Price Cap

Residential neighborhoods in the Saudi capital, Riyadh (SPA) 
Residential neighborhoods in the Saudi capital, Riyadh (SPA) 

Riyadh’s real estate market entered a new phase Sunday with applications opening for the second round of the Real Estate Balance Program.

Overseen by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC), the program aims to provide between 10,000 and 40,000 developed and planned residential plots annually over the next five years, at prices not exceeding SR1,500 per square meter.

The Real Estate Balance Platform aims to help balance the real estate market and increase homeownership among eligible beneficiaries in Riyadh.

It also seeks to ensure fair distribution and maintain a balance between supply and demand in the city's residential real estate market.

The Royal Commission for Riyadh City announced last week that applications for the program’s second year would be accepted from Aug. 16 through Sept. 15 via its online platform. The initiative follows directives from Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman to take measures to restore balance to the capital’s real estate sector.

As the program expands, its potential to influence the broader market is growing. Prices set for land offered through the initiative provide a new benchmark for homebuyers and an alternative to conventional market listings, increasing competition and potentially prompting landowners and real estate agencies to reassess asking prices.

The program is part of broader government efforts to increase Riyadh’s real estate supply and develop unused land, helping bring supply and demand into better balance as the capital experiences rapid population and economic growth.

Real estate specialists say the second round could help narrow the gap between asking prices and what buyers can afford. Its impact could extend beyond direct beneficiaries because increasing the supply of land at predetermined prices puts competitive pressure on other sellers, particularly in areas where comparable alternatives are available.

Khalid Al-Jasser, a real estate specialist and chairman of Amaken International Group, previously told Asharq Al-Awsat that the program’s impact extends beyond the land market to financing, construction, building materials and housing-related services.

Its strength, he argued, lies not only in offering land at set prices but in addressing the underlying problem by increasing supply. A larger, more orderly supply of residential land gives citizens more choices and reduces the ability of scarcity to drive prices higher.

Real estate developer Ahmed Omar Basodan described the program’s continuation for a second year as an important signal that tackling high housing costs requires a sustained approach rather than a temporary measure.

As Riyadh grows rapidly, residential supply must continually keep pace with demographic and economic expansion, he noted. The program’s most significant effect could ultimately be a shift in market behavior by reducing expectations that land scarcity will continue indefinitely to support higher prices.