Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar: We are not considering any price hikes for electricity and natural gas as we enter winter

While energy agreements between Turkey and the U.S. remain on the agenda, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar answered questions during a live broadcast on Habertürk.

Key highlights from Minister Bayraktar's statements are as follows:

As part of our visit to America, there were primarily the President's programs at the UN, followed by long and comprehensive meetings at the White House in Washington.

There has been a significant program between the U.S. and Turkey regarding energy. There is a 100 billion dollar trade target set with our President. Our exports are almost covering our imports.

The U.S. is an important commercial partner of ours. It is a very significant trade partner. When we look at the energy side, there is a huge unrealized potential. The U.S. is the largest oil and natural gas producer today. Turkey is a country that is searching for its own oil and is engaged in intensive work. We are in such a cooperation.

The U.S. is an important country in nuclear energy. Agreements that have been worked on for a long time were made with the U.S. In fact, when we look at our general energy policy, we have been giving the message of all these for years. As Turkey, we are a country with growing energy demand. Our President had said, 'We have the goal of delivering energy to our citizens in Turkey in an uninterrupted and reliable manner.' Turkey is the 4th largest country in Europe in terms of natural gas demand. In oil, we need to find fuel for 32 million vehicles every day. We have a goal to use our own resources at the highest level to meet this demand. Our own resources, our renewable resources. There are things Turkey will do in the country and abroad. We must definitely build nuclear power. Our electricity demand is growing beyond estimates.

"THE U.S. IS THE WORLD'S NUMBER 1 NATURAL GAS PRODUCER TODAY"

There was a very serious electricity consumption due to air conditioning. Our electricity demand is increasing incredibly. We also need electricity for electric cars and artificial intelligence. We are heading towards a world where water is decreasing due to drought and global warming. Turkey is a country with 32 thousand megawatts of hydraulic power plants. Turkey is a country whose energy demand will grow 3 times in the next 30 years with the most conservative estimates. To meet this demand, it is of extraordinary importance for Turkey to use its domestic coal and renewable energy at the maximum level. One of the most important countries we will cooperate with in all these areas is the U.S. The U.S. made a significant breakthrough, especially in the early 2000s.

After the shale gas revolution, the U.S. is the world's number 1 natural gas producer today. It did this with shale gas technology. We are also targeting shale gas technology, hopefully. We believe there is great potential in Diyarbakır in this sense. We are talking about a game-changing project for Turkey. The Trump administration, especially in its first term, made moves to encourage investments related to exports. In 2016, the essence of the strategy we called the national energy and mining policy in Turkey was this: If you lower natural gas to -163 degrees, it becomes liquid. You can put it on ships and bring it to every corner of the world. Assume there is much cheaper, almost free gas in the world. If you don't have the infrastructure, you have to turn that LNG back into gas. Then you have to send it to the system, homes, and workplaces through pipelines.

"THE WORLD'S CHEAPEST GAS IS AT THE LOCATION IN AMERICA, CHEAPER THAN RUSSIA"

Since 2016, we have made huge investments in this infrastructure. We have almost increased our two centers in Marmara and Aliağa by 2.5 times. We bought 3 regasification ships. Currently, Turkey has become able to benefit from this LNG opportunity in the world with investments since 2016. There are certain centers in the world where the price of natural gas is formed. There are 4 centers in the world. We want Istanbul, in particular, to become an important natural gas trading center in the world. The world's cheapest gas is at the location in America. The cheapest index is there. It is also cheaper than Russia. The second important center is in Europe, in the Netherlands. This is a virtual trading point. You can also find these on the internet.

The price formed in the Japan-Korea market is more expensive. There is also a price formation center in the United Kingdom. The cheapest price is in America. After making the infrastructure investment in 2016, we started to make some of our purchases from America. Turkey buys natural gas from more than 20 countries, starting with Algeria and continuing with Nigeria. We make long-term agreements for some of it. Some of it is spot-based gas purchases. Currently, 10 percent of the gas we use comes from America as LNG by ships. These agreements are agreements that started last September.

America extracts natural gas very cheaply. You transport it to the port by pipelines. You do liquefaction at the port, put it on a ship, and it comes to our facilities here to be regasified with the transportation cost. When we put all the costs together, American LNG becomes one of our most competitive gas sources. Calling American LNG more expensive means not knowing these four markets or knowing them and misleading our citizens.

The American administration, especially Trump's statement during the election period that 'I will end the Russia-Ukraine war,' has a serious effort. There is a visit by Russian President Mr. Putin. As a result of all these efforts, there are efforts to force Russia to peace with some sanctions, as the Biden administration did before, to get a result. Turkey has its own unique realities. There is a massive consumption of 60 billion cubic meters. We have started to meet a portion of our needs with Black Sea production. We need time. When we talk at this time next year, 4 million households will increase to 8 million. On one hand, we are in this effort to put our own gas into production. When we reach 2028, we will meet the gas needs of 16 million households with our own gas. The need for natural gas regarding electricity production continues. In that sense, Turkey will import. A ship of ours arrived today. Another one will come at the end of the year. Let's accelerate the current production and through new discoveries.

"NEW DISCOVERIES ARE COMING"

We conducted a very large exploration program in the Eastern Mediterranean. We did 8-9 deep-sea drillings. We conducted a very strong exploration program, but we could not get the result we wanted at this stage. This does not mean that we have given up on the Mediterranean. We need to test different locations. We have placed our main priority and focus on the Black Sea. It was very important to put it into production as soon as possible. We positioned 4 of our ships there. We will send the 5th ship there. It is out of the question for us to give up on the Mediterranean. Something else has started to happen in the last 2 years. You saw Turkey in Somalia. Now we have done seismic work in Somalia. We are about to finalize agreements in some fields in Libya. One of the topics we talked about at the White House during the U.S. visit is that Turkey is also an important importer of oil. It has taken steps to meet its own needs in Gabar. New discoveries are coming. While doing this import, we import oil products from different sources. We have brought the agreements regarding the oil field in Niger to certain points. We are becoming ready to make the first production within a few months. The vision our President put forward regarding there brought us there. We took a new field with Azerbaijan, we took a partnership. We have projects in Iraq. Whatever your agreement is, you get the return for it. The oil and natural gas sector. Especially the exploration and production side, the rules are clear. It is an area where hundreds of billions of dollars are invested every year in the world. There is no situation to worry about there. There is never a situation like 'they will win, we will not be able to win'.

China presented a very important show in Beijing where it presented the point it reached in the defense industry and technology to the whole world. I take part in all the meetings with the Chinese President and the government. The warm welcome, interest, and attention shown to our President were at a very high level. It was a very long meeting. Later, the working dinner of the secretary general was quite comprehensive. We also talked about everything from renewables to electricity transmission lines there. We had the opportunity to discuss these projects with the Chinese Ministry of Energy and the head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

"TURKEY MUST ABSOLUTELY PRODUCE ELECTRICITY FROM NUCLEAR ENERGY"

We have more alternatives in natural gas. For example, one of the agreements we signed in the U.S. is with an Australian company. Mozambique could come into play as a producer in the near future. When it comes to nuclear, the number of countries that can build nuclear power plants does not exceed the fingers of one hand. Turkey must absolutely produce electricity from nuclear energy. This is Turkey's 70-year goal, its dream. Under the leadership of our President, this work has moved from potential to reality with the agreement we concluded with the Russian Federation in 2010. Currently, 4 reactors are being built at the same time in Akkuyu. We have an opposition that has an attitude against nuclear power without scientific basis. Some of our citizens may have concerns about safety. There are nuclear reactors in 31 countries in the world. 94 of these are in America. France gets 67 percent of its electricity from here. There is one in Armenia. Turn to the West, there are some in Bulgaria, Romania, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary. The number of newly built power plants is around 60. 4 are in our country. There is a power plant under construction in England. It is impossible for Turkey to remain indifferent to this.

Electricity demand in Turkey will develop faster than expected. Our President had two major meetings in New York. The meeting he had with Mr. Macron. The agenda is nuclear energy. A meeting was held with Canada in the same way. Canada expressed that it is ready for this. We buy LNG from the U.S. We made natural gas agreements because it is competitive and cheaper than our other gas sources. We attach great importance to localization in nuclear energy. Turkey has a very serious industry. We have an effort to have this industry produce equipment for nuclear power plants and to create an ecosystem in this sense. We are looking at technology transfer and human resource development. The process that started with Akkuyu brought significant awareness to Turkey. We sent hundreds of students abroad. Now some of them have started working in Akkuyu. We organized a nuclear project competition under the roof of TEKNOFEST. It was a very special competition. Developing our human resources is very important. We need to install 15 thousand megawatts with 4 reactors in Sinop and 4 in Thrace.

"OUR PRESIDENT HAS A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH MR. TRUMP"

We made a nuclear cooperation agreement in a very broad framework in the U.S. I had a meeting in New York. We had a meeting with a nuclear company. We discussed what we could do. Nuclear is a job that takes a lot of time. Frankly, we lost time in Sinop. We said that it does not make sense to continue the agreement we made with the Japanese because the feasibility study was expensive. We must build this nuclear power plant to provide cheaper electricity to our people. Now we need to decide in the coming months who will work with us. Nuclear is a special field in the world. In the coming months, it will be clear which countries we will proceed with.

Our President has a special relationship with Mr. Trump that started during his first presidential term. The interesting part of the meeting was the private White House tour of Mr. Trump with our President. There was a part where he said, "I gave you a tour that I have not given to any leader until today." Trump, as you know, went through a difficult process. Our President has a very result-oriented approach to continuing that relationship. It was an extremely productive meeting in terms of trade targets set between the two countries, potential cooperation, and issues in many areas.

We have never had any problems with the Russians. The financing of Akkuyu is a huge investment. Akkuyu is the largest foreign investment in the history of the Republic. Russia undertook a large investment in a foreign country despite the Ukraine war, which is the financing this investment needs. We had difficulties there. Otherwise, we have very positive relations. Therefore, there is a slowdown caused by that. There are other reasons for the slowdown. Western and European suppliers not delivering despite promising, receiving payment, and producing. I can say that there is a delay beyond what we expected in the process along with these. Akkuyu continues on its way with determination. Hopefully, from now on, we are working to commission the first reactor, especially with the old momentum within the year 2016. The first plan was to commission one reactor every year. In the process after that, up to a 49 percent share in the intergovernmental agreement, foreign financing and investors from Turkey can be taken. Therefore, I think it will accelerate.

"WE ARE NOT CONSIDERING A PRICE HIKE"

There is no price hike for natural gas. We are not considering a price hike for natural gas and electricity as we enter winter. Thank God the pandemic is over. Now there is such a situation. There is a burden of approximately 590-600 billion liras on the Treasury in natural gas and electricity. We are giving the gas we buy to the citizen perhaps at half the price. There is no harm in giving this as support to those in need, the low-income, and the fixed-income. We say that our state should not pay the money of those who do not need it, those who are not aware of the information about how much the bill came at the end of the month. We had done this in electricity at that time. We had done it based on consumption. Those who need support will apply to the Ministry of Family and Social Services. It will be examined and included in the support group. We are working on this. Hopefully, we will announce this soon, perhaps with the new year.