ANKARA: Turkey has secured a discount of more than 10 percent in the price of it pays natural gas it imports from Russia, but the weakness of the lira means consumers won't see any change in their bills, the energy minister said Friday.
Russian energy giant Gazprom and Turkey's state-owned pipeline company Botas have finalised negotiations and "the latest point we reached yesterday is 10.25 percent reduction," Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said in televised remarks.
Turkey depends on Russia for most of its natural gas and oil supplies.
Russia's Gazprom often gives discounts, but concrete information about current prices is hard to obtain.
Gazprom's gas prices are falling as they are tied to the price of crude oil, which has fallen around half since last June.
According to the Russian business daily Vedomosti the government is forecasting the average price paid by Gazprom's European customers this year to fall to $222 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas.
Yildiz hailed the discount as "valuable and important" but said the reduction would not yet reflect on the citizens' gas bills because "the rise in dollar is much more than the discount we get."
Turkey's lira has struck a series of historic lows in recent months against the dollar as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pressures the central bank to ease monetary policy while the greenback has strengthened against emerging market currencies as the US Federal Reserve nears raising interest rates this year.
Despite their differences over thorny political issues including the crisis in Syria, Turkey and Russia are enjoying burgeoning trade and energy ties.
In February, the two countries tentatively agreed on the route for their planned Turkish Stream gas pipeline which Moscow hopes will replace its now scrapped South Stream project.
Russian President Vladimir Putin dramatically scrapped the South Stream project during a visit to Ankara in December, blaming the European Union for placing obstructions in its way.
The South Stream pipeline aimed to carry Russian gas from southern Russia to EU consumers under the Black Sea avoiding Ukraine, whose relations with Russia are currently in deep crisis.
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