Turkey and Turkmenistan have signed a long-awaited agreement that will facilitate the flow of Turkmen natural gas to Turkey.

The deal, under which gas should be piped from March 1, was announced by Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar on February 11.

The agreement was signed by two state-owned entities, Turkey's pipeline operator Botas and Turkmenistan's Turkmengaz. Gas will flow into the Turkish gas network from Iran, the country that lies between Turkmenistan and Turkey. It is thought that the gas will actually be Iranian – in other words, Turkmenistan will provide northern Iran with gas shipments in return for which, Iran will export volumes of its own gas to Turkey.

Still under discussion is a possible project to construct a gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan. From there, Turkmen gas could flow onwards to Turkey. The pipeline could have the capacity to transit up to 15bn cubic metres of gas per year.

"With this agreement, which we have been working on for many years, we will further advance the strategic cooperation between the two countries while strengthening the natural gas supply security of our country and region," Bayraktar said in a statement.

Turkey, which has very few gas resources of its own, consumes more than 50bcm of gas per year. It receives piped gas from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, along with liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from a range of suppliers.

No details on what volumes of gas will be shipped to Turkey under the agreement were provided, but, in previous statements, Bayraktar has said Turkey could buy up to 2bcm of gas annually from Turkmenistan via Iran’s existing gas network. Turkmenistan has said this level of supply would be possible at the initial stage of envisaged supplies.

Turkey is ambitious to form a gas hub via which it could re-export gas from various providers to Europe. The fact that one of those providers as plans stand would be Russia is problematic for some European countries that are part of the economic backlash against Moscow in response to the Ukraine war.

Alongside the gas deal with Turkey, Turkmen officials provided details of plans to expand electricity exports to Iran via a power transmission line that would link Mary hydropower station in Turkmenistan to Mashhad, the second-most-populous Iranian city, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about 900 kilometres (560 miles) from Tehran. Iranian companies would likely take part in its construction.

China is currently by far the dominant buyer of Turkmen gas. Turkmenistan in recent years has stepped up efforts to diversify the export markets it can provide gas to. A deal to provide another neighbour of Iran, Iraq, with gas has been signed.