Tag: Energy Deals

  • Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan look past hostilities to cooperate

    Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan look past hostilities to cooperate

    AD20111115125364 UAE

    April Yee

    Nov 15, 2011

    ERBIL, Iraq // Before Iraqi Kurdistan built its new airport, visitors often had to travel circuitous routes to get to the northern region, usually by way of Turkey.

    Turkey has taken advantage of its proximity to build close business ties with this semi-autonomous region of Iraq, in spite of a tumultuous history that continues to pit Kurdish rebel fighters against the Turkish military.

    “We are neighbours by blood,” said Mehmet Sepil, the chief executive of Genel Enerji, a Turkish company that drills in Kurdistan. “I’m sure in the future and in the very soon future there will be very good coordination between the Kurds [and the] Turkish government.”

    Kurds, who are the majority in Kurdistan, are an ethnic minority in Turkey. Enmity between some Kurds and Turkish authorities dates as far back as Turkey’s efforts to “Turkify” Kurds in the 1930s, and for the past quarter of a century Kurdish rebels in Turkey have pushed for more political and civil rights, at times violently.

    In the latest outbreak of violence, Turkey carried out an airstrike on Sunday in the Qandil Mountains near the border between Turkey and Iraq.

    The attack targeted Kurdish rebels of the PKK – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – an organisation that is based in Kurdistan and positions itself as a foe of the Turkish government.

    But when it comes to business, Iraqi Kurdistan has turned a blind eye to Turkey’s military incursions, and Turkey to the rebels based in Kurdistan. The working relationship is about one thing, energy.

    “Turkey has a big need for energy,” Mr Sepil said.

    “Today, Turkey produces only about 8 to 10 per cent of the crude it needs and only 1 or 2 per cent of the gas. Every year power demand grows by 2,500 megawatts … We are paying a huge bill to Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran to cover these costs.”

    Turkey hopes to ship Kurdish gas through the planned Nabucco pipeline to Europe, and Kurdistan has talked of an alternative plan to send the gas to a plant at the Turkish port of Ceyhan, where it would be liquefied for export by sea to international markets.

    Genel Enerji brought US$2.1 billion (Dh7.71bn) of investment to Kurdistan in September when it struck a deal to merge with Vallares, the investment company headed by Tony Hayward, who stepped down as chief executive of BP last year.

    Despite the recent airstrikes, Ashti Hawrami, the oil minister of Kurdistan, characterised the state of play with Turkey as “a good relationship”.

    ayee@thenational.ae

    via Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan look past hostilities to cooperate – The National.

  • EU-Turkey Talks Need to Resume, Oettinger Tells Tagesspiegel

    EU-Turkey Talks Need to Resume, Oettinger Tells Tagesspiegel

    European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger is seeking to end the deadlock in the talks on Turkey’s accession to the bloc, Tagesspiegel reported, citing an interview.

    The issues between Turkey and Cyprus need to be resolved soon to allow the process to continue, the German newspaper cited the commissioner as saying. Turkey plays a key role in the EU’s energy strategy, Oettinger said, according to Tagesspiegel.

    To contact the reporter on this story: Karin Matussek in Berlin at kmatussek@bloomberg.net

    To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dick Schumacher at dschumacher@bloomberg.net.

    via EU-Turkey Talks Need to Resume, Oettinger Tells Tagesspiegel – Bloomberg.

  • Turkey and Russia Conclude Energy Deals

    Turkey and Russia Conclude Energy Deals

    a1Published: August 6, 2009

    ISTANBUL — Russia and Turkey concluded energy agreements on Thursday that will support Turkey’s drive to become a regional hub for fuel transshipments while helping Moscow maintain its monopoly on natural gas shipments from Asia to Europe.

    Turkey granted the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom use of its territorial waters in the Black Sea, under which the company wants to route its so-called South Stream pipeline to gas markets in Eastern and Southern Europe.

    In return, a Russian oil pipeline operator agreed to join a consortium to build a pipeline across the Anatolian Peninsula, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and Gazprom affirmed a commitment to expand an existing Black Sea gas pipeline for possible transshipment across Turkey to Cyprus or Israel.

    Energy companies in both countries agreed to a joint venture to build conventional electric power plants, and the Interfax news agency in Russia reported that Prime MinisterVladimir V. Putin offered to reopen talks on Russian assistance to Turkey in building nuclear power reactors.

    The agreements were signed in Ankara, the Turkish capital, in meetings between Mr. Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who has joined Mr. Putin on several energy projects, attended the ceremony. The Italian company Eni broke ground on the trans-Anatolian oil pipeline this year.

    While the offer of specific pipeline deals and nuclear cooperation represented a new tactic by Mr. Putin, the wider struggle for dominance of the Eurasian pipelines is a long-running chess match in which he has often excelled.

    As he has in the past, Mr. Putin traveled to Turkey with his basket of tempting strategic and economic benefits immediately after a similar mission by his opponents. A month ago, European governments signed an agreement in Turkey to support the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, which would compete directly with the South Stream project.

    By skirting Russian territory, the Nabucco pipeline would undercut Moscow’s monopoly on European natural gas shipments and the pricing power and political clout that come with it. That may explain why Nabucco, which cannot go forward without Turkey’s support, has encountered a variety of obstacles thrown up by the Russian government, including efforts to deny it vital gas supplies in the East and a customer base in the West.

    Turkey and other countries in the path of Nabucco have been eager players in this geopolitical drama, entertaining offers from both sides. Turkish authorities have even tried, without much success, to leverage the pipeline negotiations to further Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, while keeping options with Russia open, too.

    “These countries are more than happy to sign agreements with both parties,” Ana Jelenkovic, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said in a telephone interview from London. “There’s no political benefit to shutting out or ceasing energy relations with Russia.”

    Under the deal Mr. Putin obtained Thursday, Gazprom will be allowed to proceed with seismic and environmental tests in Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, necessary preliminary steps for laying the South Stream pipe, Prime Minister Erdogan said at a news conference.

    After the meeting, Mr. Putin said, “We agreed on every issue.”

    The trans-Anatolian oil pipeline also marginally improves Russia’s position in the region. The pipeline is one of two so-called Bosporus bypass systems circumventing the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which are operating at capacity in tanker traffic.

    The preferred Western route is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which allows companies to ship Caspian Basin crude oil to the West without crossing Russian territory; the pipeline instead crosses the former Soviet republic of Georgia and avoids the crowded straits by cutting across Turkey to the Mediterranean.

    Russia prefers northbound pipelines out of the Caspian region that terminate at tanker terminals on the Black Sea. The success of this plan depends, in turn, on creating additional capacity in the Bosporus bypass routes. Russia is backing two such pipelines.

    Mr. Putin’s offer to move ahead with a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Turkey suggests a sweetening of the overall Russian offer on energy deals with Turkey, while both Western and Russian proposals are on the table.

    The nuclear aspect of the deal drew protests. About a dozen Greenpeace protesters were surrounded by at least 200 armored police officers in central Ankara on Thursday.

    Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.

    The New York Times