Turkish Energy Strategy Is Long-term: Erdogan

Turkey's energy projects must not focus on the quick buck, the country's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan told delegates at the Atlantic Council summit in Istanbul April 28.

In a wide-ranging speech that covered the April 16 referendum on his powers, the state of relations in the Middle East and terrorism generally, he talked about successes with diversifying energy imports, including last year's delivery of US LNG, floating power projects, and on ambitious plans to develop wind, solar and nuclear power.

In his keynote speech he said there were three objectives: energy security, using energy where it is found – "We are burdened by imports and we need to develop our own resources," he said – and stable markets. But in the 21st century he said energy should be key to co-operation as well, he said.

Supply security projects include the ambitious scheme to expand underground gas storage to 11bn m³ by 2023 – which would be an unusually large percentage of Turkey's annual demand and could be difficult to implement cost-effectively given the lack of depleted gas fields. Another plan is to carry out twice-yearly seismic surveys of the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea in search of oil and gas.

(Credit: Tanap)

Also on the agenda is the Turk Stream line which is due to carry gas directly from Russia to Turkey by 2020 – "hopefully," as Erdogan's predecessor on the podium Berat Albayrak said – bypassing Ukraine, although some gas could continue to flow through Ukraine and the Balkans into western Turkey depending on how many of the planned 15.75bn m³/yr lines are laid.. 

He said public and private companies had together spent a lot on energy, including initiating historic projects, a likely reference to the TransAnatolian pipeline (pictured above), the Turkish section of the Southern Gas Corridor. This was part of the plan to turn Turkey into an energy hub, which is one of his goals.

Much of his speech however was a polemic. He turned on the European Union for not contributing more than a fraction of the promised funds to support Turkey's hosting of Syrian refugees which has so far cost it $25bn; he said he intended, when he visits the US president Donald Trump next month, to request the extradition to Turkey of the man he believes was behind last year's failed coup against him, now resident in Pennsylvania; and the need to not strike deals with some terrorist organisations in order to bring down another one, but to oppose them all.

He said there was an opportunity though to turn a crisis into constructive co-operation and reconciliation. Violence is never the answer, he said, and he urged those who voted 'no' in the April 16 referendum to accept the fact of the defeat.

William Powell