Evaluation of natural gas reserve regions with multi-criteria decision making techniques in the context of Turkey and the European Union

Energy is one of the most important inputs for all service sectors and goods production sectors and has become an indispensable resource of today that increases the quality of life with the most vital benefits such as heating and lighting. For this reason, energy has become a basic need in all aspects of life and economy. Natural gas, which has become the most preferred energy source in the energy market, is a resource that is actively used in the industry, can be converted into electrical energy, provides ease of transportation and storage, and has contributed to almost one-third of the total energy demand in the world in the last decade, more than other fuels. Natural gas, which is also the cleanest burning fossil fuel, has many environmental benefits in terms of air quality and especially greenhouse gas emissions when compared to other fossil fuels. This thesis study; It covers a research in which multi-criteria decision-making methods are applied in an integrated manner to compare and rank alternative natural gas lines that transmit or will transmit natural gas to the European Union countries in terms of the priorities of the energy source regions/countries to be fed. AHP and TOPSIS methods, which are multi-criteria decision-making methods, were preferred in the study on prioritizing energy source regions/countries. When the results of the analyzes were evaluated, it was determined that although the last political crisis between the Russian Federation and Ukraine turned into a military conflict, the Russian Federation is the country with the highest importance among the alternative energy source regions/countries in the component where the EU is included as the recipient region/country. The Caspian and Turkic Republics ranked second, the Middle East ranked third, the Islamic Republic of Iran ranked fourth, and the last region/country was the Eastern Mediterranean. As a result of the findings of the research, it has been evaluated that Turkey can be a very important and reliable transfer country between the EU and the supplying region/countries in the context of geopolitical, economic and political relations, apart from Ukraine. In line with the results obtained, evaluations were made for researchers and practitioners in order to form the basis for future research. Keywords: Energy, Natural Gas, Multi-Criteria Decision Making, AHP, TOPSIS