Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar answered the question of whether there will be an increase in natural gas and electricity prices in May in a live broadcast he attended. Bayraktar said that there will be no increase in electricity and natural gas prices. Speaking about natural gas support, Bayraktar said, “We will continue to support groups that need to be supported socially.”
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar answered questions on NTV live broadcast. Bayraktar said that there will be no increase in electricity and natural gas prices in May. Minister Bayraktar, who also made a statement about free natural gas support, said, “We will continue to support groups that need to be supported socially. Maybe a process such as supporting all segments may not be right.”
The highlights of Bayraktar’s statements are as follows:
“The road to Gabar In 2016, Turkish Petroleum was our national company that produced 33 thousand barrels of oil per day and 600 thousand cubic meters of natural gas. In 2016, we started working on the change of national energy and mining policy and strategy.
And we started to implement the strategic steps we created within the framework of the decision. We set strategic goals in the field of exploration and production. There will be no geography left unvisited in Turkiye. We decided that we would go to geographies that had been previously visited and abandoned, and evaluate them with a different evaluation. Gabar is the result of this strategy.
Secondly, we said that we will definitely be in the seas, especially in deep sea exploration, with our own ships. We had no searches in the Mediterranean until that day. There were also calls in the Black Sea, but there were calls we made with international companies. We created our own fleet, thus turning Turkish Petroleum into a company with one of the most important maritime fleets in the world.
The Gabar discovery is the biggest discovery in the history of the Republic in Turkiye. Our Sirnak province has become by far the most oil-producing province in Turkiye. Turkish Petroleum was producing 33 thousand barrels of oil at the beginning of 2016. Today, only Gabar has exceeded 40 thousand barrels of daily production. Our goal is to reach Gabar’s daily production of 100 thousand barrels by the end of the year. Intensive work continues on this subject. When we reach 100 thousand barrels in Gabar, if we talk about today’s oil prices, it is an economic size of $3 billion. We do not import it, it remains in our country.
There are wells that we plan to dig in Hakkari, Van, the north-west of Gabar and right on the border. We have a very ambitious exploration program for 2024. We will open 140 wells in 2024. Hopefully, we will add new reserves to our existing reserves from here.
Our President has a visit to Baghdad on Monday. We will also be with him in the delegation. We want this line to be fully used. Iraqi oil and the oil produced by Turkiye need to reach Ceyhan.
Will free natural gas support continue?
We will continue to support groups that need social support. Maybe a process such as supporting all segments may not be right. We will have to cover the costs to a certain extent. We will continue to do whatever we can do here within our means.
Will there be an increase in natural gas and electricity prices in May?
There is an oil price reaching $87-$88. We started to see an upward movement in natural gas. It is not possible for us to be independent from them. We are trying to find out how we can offer it to our citizens in the most appropriate way. Although we went through the election processes, no raise was given in April. There does not appear to be a raise expectation in May either. But we will evaluate these according to developments and market conditions.”
Source: Dunya.com / Prepared by Irem Yildiz