Erdogan: We aim to make Turkey a global gas center as soon as possible

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his government aims to make Turkey a global center where the reference price for natural gas is determined as soon as possible.

This came in a speech he delivered today, Friday, during his participation in a ceremony to increase the capacity of the gas storage station in the Silivri suburb of Istanbul.

President Erdogan stated that today the Silivri station has become the largest underground gas storage facility in Europe, after increasing its capacity.

"We aim to make our country a global center where the reference price for natural gas is determined as soon as possible," he added.

"We have defined our energy vision to reduce our external dependence on primary resources from 71% to 13% in 2053, and we set our goals and plan our investments accordingly," he said.

Erdogan pointed out that Turkey has become the 17th in the world in terms of the volume of energy supply to citizens and industrialists.

He added that the underground natural gas storage station in Silivri alone can meet a quarter of domestic demand even at the country's highest consumption.

He expressed his hope that the total capacity of the facility, which reached 4.6 billion cubic meters with the opening of the new phase, would benefit Turkey and its people.

He said that they will continue to invest until the country reaches the safest level in the field of natural gas discovery, operation, and storage.

He added, "We shared with our people our goals to bring our country to a level that can compete with the world in all fields. We plan to make a big leap forward in infrastructure and services through hard and tireless work over the past 20 years."

Erdogan stressed, "We are entering a new era in which we will take our country to the fore, as we have begun to reap the fruits of our efforts and achievements that we have made over the past 20 years."

He explained, "Our goal is to make our country a global center in which the reference price for natural gas is determined as soon as possible, and in this regard we held important discussions with Mr. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin on this issue."

And he continued, "We have taken and are taking our steps in this regard, and therefore the Thrace region (northwestern Turkey) in particular will become a center for natural gas and energy. We are working on this issue with our energy partners in our region."

"Today, Turkey ranks 17th in the world in terms of the largest supplies in the world, with the energy service it provides to its citizens and its industrial sector," Erdogan added.

Black Sea gas

He recalled their discovery of the largest natural gas reserves in Turkey at 540 billion cubic meters in the Black Sea, thanks to their exploration efforts after preparing the largest exploration fleet in the world.

And he went on to say, "We are carrying out intensive construction activity to transfer the natural gas explored in the Black Sea to our national network.. At the same time, we are working day and night to share the good news about new discoveries with our people. There is a similar development in the field of oil exploration and production. We are carrying out new drilling work." And re-examination of old wells and put them into production.

Erdogan added, "We hope to increase our daily oil production to 100,000 barrels as soon as possible, after which we will continue our path towards larger discoveries and productions."

Transporting gas through Turkey

He continued, "With the Turkish Stream project (transporting Russian gas to Europe via Turkey), we provide gas flows to Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Hungary. Today we delivered 18.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe through the TANAP project (a pipeline to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe). across Anatolia).

"Our LNG investments and gas storage facilities are developments that have positive implications for our energy trade as well as ensuring the security of supplies in our country," he added.

He explained, "When we put our LNG facility in the Saros Gulf region into service, we will reach a much stronger position in this field."

The Turkish president indicated that, "Lying behind the annoyance caused by Turkey's agreement with Libya is the fact that every investment in the field of energy has a depth of a century or half a century."

"We are making great efforts to expand our political and diplomatic relations on the basis of common economic interests, and to achieve new gains in the field of energy along with other fields," Erdogan said.