Turkey says Russian gas supplies fall slightly

ANKARA (Reuters) - Russian natural gas supplies to Turkey have fallen slightly as a result of the Ukraine-Russia gas dispute but this has not posed any problems, a senior official at Turkey's energy ministry told Reuters on Sunday.

Turkey usually receives 40 million cubic meters of Russian gas from a pipeline crossing Ukraine but this has fallen to 38 million cubic meters over the last few days, the official said.

Russian state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom cut off Ukraine's gas supply on New Year's Day in a row over prices. Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria have reported drops in supplies as a result.

A dispute in January 2006 in which Russia, Turkey's top gas supplier, also cut off supplies to Ukraine caused a brief drop in deliveries to Turkey.

On Friday ministry officials told Reuters they did not expect any disruption in supplies but had made preparations in case.

Turkey also receives around 35 million cubic meters of Russian gas a day through the Blue Stream pipeline which flows under the Black Sea, but there is potential for the flow to be increased to 50 million cubic meters if necessary.

The ministry official said on Sunday Russia had not yet discussed with Ankara raising supplies through the Blue Stream line.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun; Editing by Richard Meares)