Turkey's annual gas consumption diminished by roughly 15 percent due to the warm winter, local newspaper Zaman daily reported on Monday.

The daily usage of natural gas, mainly in winter, has retreated from 135 million cubic meters to 115 million, the report said, adding this indicates that Turkey's energy dependency on foreign producers has decreased considerably as the weather negatively affects the demand.

However, as Iran choked the transfer of gas to Turkey at the beginning of this year, Turkey had to increase the amount of gas imported from Russia through the Blue Stream pipeline, which meant an unexpected increase in the cost.

Another measure was to buy gas from Algeria, which was much more expensive than Turkey's normal imports when the transportation fees are included.

Meanwhile, the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) estimated that Turkey's gas needs are expected to jump by 20 percent and hit 36.2 billion cubic meters in 2007.

Assistant General Manager of Turkish Pipeline Company (BOTAS) Sakir Arikan was quoted as saying that this winter was going very smoothly since the flow of gas normalized again thanks to the mild weather.

Noting that there is no problem with Iran at present regarding gas trade, Arikan said, "Iran is still not giving the quantities determined in the contract. Yet again, in recent negotiations they said they can't give 29 million cubic meters, the agreed amount of gas per day, but 17 million cubic meters is fine."

"Therefore we made our plans with this claim in mind. Now, between 20 and 22 million cubic meters of gas is flowing from Iran, " said Arikan.

Arikan added that the case with Iran was brought to the arbitrational tribunal and Turkey demanded a price decrease from Iran in return.

Source: Xinhua