Turkey presents national energy strategy

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey will conduct seismic studies for oil and gas drilling activities, two in the Black Sea, and two in the Mediterranean from this year onwards, Berat Albayrak, Turkish energy and natural resources minister said Thursday.

Albayrak presented Turkey's national energy strategy in Istanbul where he promised that Turkey would focus its diversification of energy sources on local resources.

"Turkey will produce a geophysical map of its territory to get a full picture of our natural resources. We aim to complete the map by 2018," Albayrak said.

Domestic production and R&D are essential for Turkey's development, he said, adding that domestic coal resources, which transpires to be more calorie-rich than previously, thought, will be an important part of Turkey's energy strategy.

"One of my personal ambitions was to create a national solar energy tender, and we did this. Our next step is to set up a national wind tender," he said, adding that discussions have been held with significant global wind energy companies to obtain their input in order to revise strategies before holding the wind tender before the end of the summer.

Turkey has already begun its strategy to boost the country's domestic energy resources, including coal and renewables, and capacities from these are set to further grow in the share of the country's total energy mix.

According to the ministry's 2015-2019 Strategic Plan, 32,000 megawatts of production capacity in hydro power is targeted, 10,000 megawatts is aimed for wind, 3,000 megawatts from solar, 1,000 megawatts in geothermal, and 700 megawatts from biomass.

Turkey aims to consolidate its position centered among energy-rich countries to reduce its energy import dependence.