By Bosphorus News Energy Desk
Azerbaijan supplied 1.012 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas to Türkiye in June, according to the Energy Market Regulatory Authority's Natural Gas Market Sector Report, edging out Iran's 883 million cubic meters and Russia's 882 million cubic meters to rank first for the month. The margin between second and third place was one million cubic meters.
Social media accounts have circulated the ranking as evidence of a lasting reversal in Türkiye's energy relationships. The same EPDK report shows Azerbaijan has topped June rankings every year since 2023, and Russia supplied more than double Azerbaijan's gas over the first six months of 2026.
Azerbaijan Has Led Every June Since 2023
Azerbaijan supplied 744 million cubic meters in June 2023, 997 million in June 2024 and 1.02 billion in June 2025, putting this year's 1.012 billion in line with the recent pattern. Russia led every month from January through May 2026 before slipping to third place in June.
Türkiye's total natural gas imports fell 6.19 percent year on year in June to roughly 3.06 billion cubic meters, EPDK said. Pipeline deliveries accounted for 2.777 billion cubic meters of that total, with the remaining 282 million cubic meters arriving as liquefied natural gas, all of it from Algeria. By import share, Azerbaijan held 33.09 percent of June's total, Iran 28.86 percent, Russia 28.83 percent and Algeria 9.22 percent. Domestic consumption rose 4.59 percent to about 2.83 billion cubic meters over the same month, while local production fell 7.63 percent to 248 million cubic meters.
The Half-Year Total Still Favors Russia
Cumulative pipeline data for the first six months of 2026 shows a different ranking than the June snapshot. Türkiye imported 20.494 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas between January and June, an increase of 2 percent over the same period last year. Of that total, Russia's Gazprom supplied 10.466 billion cubic meters, more than double Azerbaijan's 5.506 billion cubic meters. Iran's pipeline deliveries rose 34 percent to 4.536 billion cubic meters over the same period, narrowing the gap with Azerbaijan from the supplier side even as Russia's overall lead held.
Total gas imports for the January-June period reached 30.689 billion cubic meters, up 2.64 percent year on year, EPDK reported. The same pattern shows up over a longer stretch: Russia's share of Türkiye's gas imports has fallen from more than 60 percent two decades ago to 41.3 percent in 2024 and roughly 37 percent in early 2025, according to Atlantic Council research, even as it remained the largest single source over every full calendar period measured this year.
New Contracts Add Suppliers Through 2027
Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced in January that Türkiye had concluded a new supply agreement with Azerbaijan covering 2.25 billion cubic meters a year from the Absheron field, totaling 33 billion cubic meters over 15 years through the early 2040s. Türkiye separately extended two Russian gas import contracts by one year in December, covering a combined 22 billion cubic meters, and Gazprom's full-year deliveries to Türkiye held nearly steady at 21.16 billion cubic meters in 2025.
Cheniere Energy and Mercuria are due to begin deliveries under new liquefied natural gas contracts in 2026, and a ten-year agreement with ExxonMobil covering roughly 3.45 billion cubic meters a year takes effect in 2027. Azerbaijani gas is also flowing onward through Türkiye to Syria, at a rate of 3.4 million cubic meters a day, using the same infrastructure Ankara has built to position itself as a transit corridor for the region.
Sources: Türkiye's Energy Market Regulatory Authority, Interfax, Atlantic Council, Türkiye's Directorate of Communications, Bosphorus News review and reporting.