The earthquake blocked the crude oil export of Türkiye's important ports

On February 6th local time, a strong earthquake occurred in southern Türkiye near the Syrian border. According to data released by the Turkish government, the Syrian government and disaster relief agencies, as of February 12th, the strong earthquake has killed more than 33000 people in both countries. Türkiye has declared a three-month state of emergency in earthquake stricken areas, and its energy infrastructure was damaged in the earthquake.

Fatih Denmez, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Türkiye, said that the first earthquake damaged a large port in the Mediterranean Sea. Later that day, a fire broke out in the port. Affected by the earthquake, the main oil transportation hub in Türkiye, Ceyhan Port, was once out of service, about 155km from the epicenter. The port mainly exports crude oil from Iraq and Azerbaijan. At present, Iraq has resumed transporting crude oil to the port through pipelines.

The port of Jaihan is an important hub for the export of crude oil from northern Iraq and Azerbaijan, and the main destination of the transportation is European refineries. Bloomberg data showed that in January 2023, more than 1 million barrels of crude oil were exported from the port every day, accounting for 1% of the total global crude oil supply.

Jayhan Port serves Türkiye's state-owned oil refining enterprise Tupras and Türkiye's oil refining enterprise Star under Azerbaijan's national oil company Socar. The crude oil in the port of Ceyhan mainly comes from two sources: one is transported from Azerbaijan through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC pipeline for short), and the other is transported from Iraq through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Crude oil from Azerbaijan is loaded at BTC terminal, while crude oil from Iraq is loaded at Botas terminal. Although the operation of Jaihan Port was suspended for a time, the two crude oil transportation pipelines connecting Azerbaijan and Iraq were not damaged in the earthquake.

After the earthquake, Iraq suspended the use of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to transport crude oil. The Kurdish authorities also suspended the use of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to transport crude oil from the Kurdish region. Under normal circumstances, the outbound crude oil volume of Kurdish region through the pipeline is about 450000 barrels/day. The subsequent security inspection showed that the pipeline was not damaged. At present, Iraq has resumed transporting crude oil to the port through the pipeline.

Bp azerbaijan branch previously said that its export of azerbaijan crude oil via the port of jeyhan in Türkiye was interrupted by force majeure. The company is the operator of BTC pipeline in Azerbaijan and Georgia. The port of Jaihan is the main export channel of Azerbaijani oil, which can export about 650000 barrels of Azerbaijani crude oil per day. In the afternoon of February 12 local time, the company said that it had started to use oil tankers to load and unload Azerbaijani crude oil at the port, and it was expected that the BTC pipeline would also resume operation in the near future.

The news that Türkiye's transmission lines and natural gas pipelines were also damaged in the earthquake was confirmed by Türkiye's pipeline operator Botas. The company said that the natural gas pipeline supply in three provinces in Türkiye was interrupted after the earthquake. The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Türkiye said that mobile power stations have been distributed to the earthquake stricken areas to ensure the power and gas supply of hospitals and basic livelihood facilities in the disaster areas.