Istanbul, Turkey, July 10
By Seymur Aliyev, Rufiz Hafizoglu – Trend:
Turkey will expand the work for exploration of hydrocarbons in the coming years, said the country’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Berat Albayrak.
He made the remarks July 10 in Istanbul at the opening of the 22nd World Petroleum Congress.
“Energy consumption in Turkey is growing and the search for deposits of valuable hydrocarbons is now ongoing in the Black Sea in order to reduce the dependence on imports,” Albayrak said.
Today, Turkey is one of the key countries participating in energy projects in the region, according to him.
“Turkey brings together all the countries that are consumers and suppliers of energy resources,” he noted.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) are significant projects and a bright example of Turkey’s successful policy, according to Albayrak.
TANAP project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field to the western borders of Turkey. The gas will be delivered to Turkey in 2018 and after completion of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline's construction the gas will be delivered to Europe in early 2020.
The length of TANAP is 1,850 kilometers with an initial capacity of 16 billion cubic meters of gas. Around six billion cubic meters of this gas is meant to be delivered to Turkey, with the remaining volume to be supplied to Europe.
TANAP shareholders are Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR (58 percent), BOTAS (30 percent) and BP (12 percent).