Tag: Taner Yildiz

Russia, Turkey Seek to Boost Trade to $100 Bln

Tags: Alexander Novak, Taner Yildiz, Turkey, Russia

ANTALYA, April 20 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and Turkey are committed to expanding mutual investment and cooperation, aiming to bring bilateral trade to $100 billion, the Russian and Turkish energy ministers said on Saturday.

The Turkish-Russian Joint Economic Committee (JEC) held its 12th Meeting in the southern province of Antalya with the participation of Turkish Energy and Natural Sources Minister Taner Yildiz and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

Yildiz said there is good potential to increase the volume of trade from the current $34 billion to $100 billion.

Around 1,500 Russian companies currently operate in Turkey while Turkish contractors are involved in projects in Russia worth a total of $50 billion, he said, according to the Hurriyet daily.

He also said Turkish-Russian cooperation could continue in third countries.

Yildiz and Novak signed a JEC protocol prioritizing the diversification and expansion of bilateral trade and the creation of an investor-friendly environment in order to achieve the $100 billion target.

April 21, 2013
Minister: Turkey does not mind cooperation with Israel

Azerbaijan, Baku, April 20 / Trend R.Hafizoglu /

Turkey does not mind cooperation with Israel following the completion of the process of normalization of relations, Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said, Sabah newspaper reported.

The minister said this issue could be discussed after the full normalization of relations.

Earlier, Al Jazeera channel has published information alleging that Turkey and Israel are negotiating on the transportation of Turkish goods through Israel.

The agreement on normalisation of relations between Turkey and Israel was reached last Friday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, apologised for violations committed during the maritime operation that resulted in the deaths of Turkish citizens.

The government heads agreed to restore normal relations including the return of ambassadors and Turkey’s refusal to legally prosecute Israeli servicemen.

April 21, 2013
Turkey denies French-Japanese JV win nuke bid

Turkey declined reports on Thursday that a French-Japanese consortium has won a tender to build the country’s second nuclear power plant, asserting it was “too early to comment.”

Japan’s Nikkei business daily reported on Thursday that the Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and France’s Areva SA have won an order to build Turkey’s second nuclear power plant, a project expected to cost around $22 billion. Representatives from Areva and Mitsubishi Heavy were unavailable immediately to comment, but Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz rushed in on Thursday to deny that such a deal existed.

“It is too early to make such comments. … We cannot yet say the race for [who will build] our second nuclear power plant is over,” Yildiz told a private news channel on Thursday.

Turkey has been in negotiations with South Korea, China, Japan and Canada for the construction of a second nuclear power plant in the Black Sea province of Sinop. An agreement was reached with Russia in 2010 to build the first plant in Mersin’s Akkuyu district.

Reiterating the Turkish government’s reluctance to offer a state guarantee for the nuclear project’s financing, Yildiz said South Korea was eliminated due to this condition, while more focused talks continued with Japan and China. “I think we are now closer to finalizing the talks with these two countries than ever,” said the energy minister.

This is not the first time Turkey has insisted on “risk sharing” in the months-long Sinop nuclear bid. Observers argued Yildiz’s statements were meant to further heat up competition between the bidders so that they would agree to relatively more favorable terms.

Ongoing rapprochement between Ankara and Paris as the latter decided to lift its block on Turkey’s EU accession negotiations along with improving ties with Japan remains a key factor in the alleged nuclear deal.

Nikkei on Thursday said Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources had informed Japanese government and corporate officials of the decision to award them a deal to build four pressurized water nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of about 4.5 gigawatts in Sinop, a province on the Black Sea coast.

The paper added that the Turkish government had approached Japan about a summit meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in early May, after which it is likely to officially grant preferred negotiating rights to the Mitsubishi-Areva consortium. It added construction is set to start in 2017, with the first reactor slated to come online by 2023, and France’s GDF Suez SA will operate the plant.

Energy-poor Turkey aims to have three nuclear power plants, all of them operational by 2023, its centennial. It is anticipated to overtake Britain as Europe’s third-biggest electricity consumer within a decade.

Meanwhile, Yildiz on Thursday asserted the government will stick with plans to increase oil trade with Iraq’s north while a possible natural gas pipeline from Israel to flow through Turkey into world markets was “on the table.” “All countries in this region are aware Turkey is the key, most feasible corridor for similar energy transfer projects.”

via Turkey denies French-Japanese JV win nuke bid.

April 7, 2013
Turkey suspends energy deals with ENI over Cyprus row

Başbakan’ın yakın çevresi bu ilişkilerin içinde iken, yapılanın gerçekten Türkiye lehine olduğunu anlamak mümkün mü?

ANKARA: Turkey has suspended energy projects with Italian giant ENI because it is involved in disputed exploration for oil and gas off Cyprus, the Turkish energy minister said Wednesday.

“We have decided not to work with ENI in Turkey, including suspending their ongoing projects,” Taner Yildiz was quoted as saying by the state-run Anatolia news agency.

ENI, along with the private Turkish group Calik, is a partner in the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline project that aims to deliver Russian and Kazakh crude oil to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

Calik will make its own decision whether to continue working with ENI but Ankara is not in favour of the Italian group remaining on the project, which is expected to carry up to 70 million tonnes of oil annually from Turkey’s Black Sea city of Samsun to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the minister said.

It was not clear however if Turkey would oppose ENI involvement in the South Stream project, a separate, strategic gas pipeline plan.

In 2011, Turkey gave Russia a green light for the South Stream project to run through Black Sea waters, paving the way for a pipeline designed to transport 63 billion cubic metres (2.2 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas per year.

The Russian behemoth Gazprom owns 50 percent of the South Stream project and ENI has 20 percent, while the German company Wintershall and Electricite de France (EDF) each holds 15 percent.

ENI is also a partner to the Blue Stream pipeline which crosses the Black Sea, taking Russian gas to Turkey.

Turkey has warned that companies involved in exploration for energy resources in waters off Cyprus would be excluded from Ankara’s energy investment plans.

In January, Cyprus signed licence agreements with ENI and the South Korean firm Kogas that cover drilling off the coast of the divided island that lies to the south of Turkey.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at union with Greece.

Turkey only recognises a breakaway state in the north, not the government of the Republic of Cyprus, which became an EU member in 2004.

Ankara has long warned Cyprus against unilateral moves to exploit natural gas and oil reserves off the eastern Mediterranean, branding them illegal and maintaining that Turkish Cypriots have equal rights in the island’s energy resources.

Cyprus is banking on such resources coming to the rescue after it negotiated a 10-billion-euro bailout loan from the European Union and International Monetary Fund early Monday that saved the eurozone member from bankruptcy.

Some analysts however say that joint energy projects could bring Turkey and Cyprus closer rather than pushing them further apart.

“Of course it also depends how well you play the game,” energy expert

Necdet Pamir of the private Bilkent University told AFP.

“Turkey is a natural access for Cypriot gas reserves to be transferred to European markets,” he said. “Bypassing Turkey and shipping gas resources via an undersea pipeline would be costly.”

On Saturday, the Turkish foreign ministry fiercely rejected a Cypriot government idea to use the island’s supposed natural resources as collateral for an investment fund or other borrowing scheme to help resolve the eurozone’s latest financial crisis.

The ministry rejected the idea as a “dangerous move which might lead to a new crisis in the region,” and emphasised that Cyprus’ economic problems could only be solved within a framework of peace and cooperation.

via Turkey suspends energy deals with ENI over Cyprus row.

March 28, 2013
Turkey to invest in Afghan energy

Mr Taner Yildiz Turkish Minister for Energy and Natural Resources as saying that Afghanistan had great resources for production of electricity and announced plans to invest in Afghan energy industry.

TPAO, a Turkish petroleum corporation, won the tender for oil extraction at the Mazar i Sharif Province of Afghanistan and will invest about USD 100 million. Turkish companies won the tender for gold mining in Afghanistan.

Source – Vestnikkavkaza.net

via Turkey to invest in Afghan energy – 304759 – 2013-03-09.

March 10, 2013
Turkey’s shale gas chance

Following Energy Minister Taner Yıldız’s recent announcement that indications of possible shale gas resources had been found in the Central Anatolian provinces of Ankara, Konya and Kırşehir, we started to frequently talk about a “shale revolution.”

A shale revolution, which would change the entire energy equation of the world, according to the International Energy Agency’s Chief Economist Fatih Birol, has finally turned up. When I scanned my personal archives, I found a former article of mine written in April 2012 on that subject.

In that article, I gave some figures that were mentioned in a meeting held in Istanbul with the cooperation of Sabancı University and MIT Energy Enterprise. During the meeting, MIT professor Melanie Kenderdine said that Turkey’s shale gas potential was estimated to be around 420 billion cubic meters, which corresponds to the 10-year energy needs of Turkey.

The figure suggested by the Turkish Association of Petroleum Geologists (TPJD) President İsmail Bahtiyar; however, was even above Kenderdine’s estimations. According to Bahtiyar, Turkey has 13 trillion cubic meters in shale gas reserves, which could meet the country’s energy need for 40 years.

When these contradictory numbers are considered, it becomes clear that Turkey is first required to determine its true shale gas potential in an accurate way.

Consequently, it is a crucial step for Taner Yıldız to announce that the work with regard to shale gas has started and international energy companies who want to conduct research on this subject have been invited to Turkey.

So, in which part of Turkey is this shale gas located?

Professor Kenderdine put special emphasis on the Black Sea region, while presenting some photos taken by NASA during the meeting. According to experts, a zone of shale gas that extends from the Baltic shores to Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, could also extend to the Black Sea.

It is known that Canada-based TransAtlantic Petroleum Ltd. is conducting research in Thrace, while Shell is conducting search operations in the southeastern part of Turkey, especially around Diyarbakır.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil Corporation is also showing an interest toward the southeastern part of Turkey. Along with Konya, Kırşehir, and Ankara, the regions announced by Yıldız, the eastern province of Erzurum was also suggested among the cities with rich shale gas potential.

It is certain that Turkey, which spends an annual 60 billion dollars on energy imports, has a great opportunity ahead due to shale gas.

February/26/2013

via GİLA BENMAYOR – Turkey’s shale gas chance.

March 10, 2013