Reminding that 710 billion cubic meters of natural gas was discovered in the Sakarya Field in the Black Sea, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar said, “We aim to increase the production to 10 million cubic meters per day in a short time, and then to 40 million cubic meters.”
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar, in his opening speech at the 5th Turkish-German Energy Forum, held this year with the theme “The Future of Energy: Challenges, Opportunities and New Perspectives”, said that we are going through a difficult process regionally and globally, he said that bilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation is of great importance in this period.
Emphasizing that the Turkish-German Energy Forum, whose foundation was laid in 2012 with the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection, is important for strengthening bilateral relations and increasing cooperation in the field of energy, Bayraktar said, “Germany is one of our country’s most important cooperation partners in Europe.”
Bayraktar pointed out that during the meetings held at the forum, cooperation opportunities were evaluated through working groups on renewable energy, energy efficiency, hydrogen, energy infrastructures and legislation, and continued as follows:
“We are starting a new and stronger investment and reform period for the energy transformation that we are carrying out in line with our goals. We welcome the investments made by Germany-based companies in our country so far. In this new investment and reform period, I invite German and Turkish companies to invest and cooperate in all areas of transformation, from renewables to energy efficiency, from natural gas to storage, from green hydrogen to digitalization, transmission and distribution infrastructures.”
4 million cubic meters of production is carried out in Sakarya Gas Field
Reminding that 710 billion cubic meters of natural gas were discovered in the Sakarya Field in the Black Sea in 2020, within the scope of offshore hydrocarbon exploration and production activities initiated to reduce foreign dependency in the natural gas sector, Bayraktar said; “As of today, there is a daily gas flow of 4 million cubic meters to our network from this field, where we started production in less than 3 years. We aim to increase this production to 10 million cubic meters per day in a short time, and then to 40 million cubic meters.”
Bayraktar stated that efforts are continuing to realize the potential of hydrogen in industry, transportation and storage, and emphasized that they believe that the country’s renewable energy potential will play a key role in green hydrogen production.
Noting that sensitive, flexible and rational policy sets, as well as bilateral and multilateral collaborations, are important to achieve success in energy transformation, Bayraktar said:
“We have also made significant investments in our natural gas infrastructure in recent years. Turkiye is currently able to supply natural gas from 3 different countries through pipelines and from many different sources with 5 gasification terminals. With these projects we have implemented, we make significant contributions to the energy supply security of both our country and our region. We met the demands made to our country to ensure the natural gas supply security of the Eastern European region, which was most affected by the Russia-Ukraine war in terms of energy, and signed natural gas supply agreements with Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. We wish to contribute more to the regional supply security. We believe we can do this by providing diversity and bringing more natural gas from different sources and routes to the region.”
After the opening speeches, Minister Bayraktar and Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany and Minister of Economy and Climate Protection Robert Habeck signed a joint press release.
Making a press statement after the signing ceremony, Bayraktar stated that they were holding talks on increasing cooperation between the two countries and said, “We think that the way is open for new investments, especially in the field of renewable and green hydrogen. We invite other companies to invest in Turkey, provide financing and act together in equipment production. I believe that we can make significant progress both for our countries and in the fight against global climate change.”
Source: Trthaber / Prepared by Irem Yildiz