Ankara and Moscow are taking necessary steps to make Türkiye an energy hub, especially Thrace will become a hub for natural gas and LNG, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Dec. 16, Trend reports citing Daily News.
“We had important meetings with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. We have taken our steps. Thus, Thrace will become a hub in natural gas and energy,” Erdogan said addressing the Silivri Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility capacity increase ceremony.
“We are working on this with our energy partners. When we add nuclear power, which is invested in with $20 billion, to the table, we will rise to a completely different level in energy,” he added.
Türkiye works hard to achieve new gains in energy, along with other areas, by expanding based on common economic interests, the president said.
Erdogan underlined that the government aimed to reduce the country’s external dependency on primary resources from 71 percent to 13 percent by 2053.
“We aim to transform our country into a global center, where the natural gas reference price is determined, as soon as possible,” he stated.
Türkiye has 160 million tons of equivalent oil energy supply, whose financial value was nearly $51 billion in 2021, and it will reach $81 billion this year, the president noted.
“Although we have brought our domestic and renewable installed power to 65 percent, there is a serious foreign dependency on energy. We can’t raise our country to the level of development we desire without meeting the need for natural gas,” Erdogan said.
The president recalled his meetings in Turkmenistan on Dec. 14 and said, “We held talks to carry out both natural gas and energy transfer to our country. We had a triple summit [with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan]. Thankfully, we showed our determination among us.”
Today, Türkiye is the country with the 17th largest supply in the world, with the energy service it provides to its citizens and industry, the president emphasized.
“Our investments will continue until we bring our country to the safest level in the field of natural gas exploration and operation, as well as its storage. We will continue to take every precaution to prevent the problems caused by the energy crisis in Europe in the short and medium term in our country,” he stated.
With the Century of Türkiye, the government presented the vision of the future to the nation, he said and continued, “We shared with the public our goals, which make our country competitive with the world in every field.”
“We are entering a new period in which we will take our country to the top by reaping the fruits of our labors that we have spent on century-old works that we have put in in 20 years,” Erdogan said.
Citing Türkiye’s cooperation with Libya on maritime delimitation and hydrocarbon resources of the Mediterranean, the president said, “Behind the discomfort caused by Türkiye’s agreement with Libya lies the fact that every investment in the energy field has a century-old depth.”