Turkey urges US to lift obstacles on KRG oil sales

The Financial Times     By Daniel Dombey in Ankara and Anjli Raval in London

Turkey has called on the US to lift obstacles to the sale of oil by Iraq’s cash-strapped Kurds to help with their battle against the jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).

The call, by a senior Turkish official, comes while the US carries out air strikes against Isis in support of the Kurdistan Regional Government, even as officials in Washington discourage international purchases of Kurdish oil for fear such a trade could further fragment the Iraqi state.

“This is urgent: Isis is now selling its oil, but the Kurds are not allowed to sell their oil,” the Turkish official told the Financial Times, referring to oilfields captured by the jihadist group in eastern Syria and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

He claimed Isis was selling cut-price oil to the Syrian government – there are also allegations of widespread oil smuggling from the jihadist-controlled region, notably to Turkey itself – and compared those sales with the legal obstacles faced by KRG exports.

This week, Axeon, a US-based refiner said it would not proceed with a Kurdish buy because it was “controversial” – the latest in a series of rebuffs for tankers circling the globe with shipments of Kurdish oil.

With few buyers for its oil, one Kurdish official said the KRG was now working with Ankara on increasing storage capacity at the port of Ceyhan and elsewhere in Turkey, where the oil is piped before being loaded on to tankers, and was also looking at storing offshore.

Turkey on the frontline of Iraq's Kurdish oil row

AA

A move by Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government to export 100,000 barrels of oil per day through Turkey is a tactical move brought about by U.S. pressure which could change after April 30 elections in Iraq, experts have told Anadolu Agency.

Baghdad has been opposed to the export of stored Kurdish oil from Turkey's south-eastern port of Ceyhan on the accusation that it violates Iraq’s constitution as it would bypass the country’s national oil company, SOMO.

Currently, 1.5 million barrels of oil are sitting in Ceyhan -- which has a total of storage capacity of 2.5 million -- and are awaiting Baghdad's approval to be exported. 

The KRG has been embroiled in a long-running row with the central government in Iraq over a proposed 17 percent share from oil revenues. The dispute has lead to political boycotts by Kurdish MPs over Iraq’s draft budget with the KRG refusing to withdraw demands, claiming it could never receive its fair share of oil wealth. 

Talks between Irbil and Baghdad have so far failed to find a solution. 

However, in a sudden move, following a phone call on Thursday between KRG President Masoud Barzani and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Kurdish authorities revealed that they would accept the export of 100,000 barrels of oil per day through SOMO from April 1 as a "gesture of goodwill" while negotiations for a permanent deal with Baghdad continued. 

Now Turkish, Kurdish and American experts have given AA their analysis on the dispute’s likely outcome.

Ali Semin, from the Istanbul-based think-tank BILGESAM, said the decision was a result of intensified mediation last week by Biden and U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Stephen Beecroft.  

Turkey says wants to draw Baghdad into Kurdish oil deal

Reuters       Humeyra Pamuk

Turkey said on Monday it stood by a bilateral oil deal with Iraq's Kurdistan region that bypassed central government but wanted to win Baghdad's support by drawing it into the arrangement.

Reuters reported that Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a multi-billion-dollar energy package last week, infuriating a central Baghdad government which claims sole authority over Iraqi oil exports and is wary of any moves that could extend political autonomy to the region.

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz met Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani, in Baghdad on Sunday to try to mend ties with a federal government which says independent Kurdish oil exports would be illegal. The affair has soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad.

"We stand by the agreement we did with northern Iraq but we hope this can be carried out through a three-way mechanism," Yildiz told a conference in Arbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan region (KRG). "As Turkey, we are trying to move this forward in a careful and courteous way."

"We also would like to have the consent of the Central Government of Iraq for the commercial export of oil from the KRG to Turkey and start a trilateral cooperation scheme that will be beneficial to all."

The Kurdish north of Iraq has enjoyed autonomy since the 1990-1991 Gulf War when a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi occupying troops out of Kuwait.

Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan sign landmark energy contracts

Reuters

Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a package of landmark contracts earlier this week that will see the semi-autonomous region's oil and gas shipped to international markets via pipelines through Turkey, sources close to the deal told Reuters on Friday.

The sources said the deals were signed during Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani's three hour-long meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday.

The move is likely to further infuriate Baghdad, which claims the sole authority to manage Iraqi oil and which said late on Thursday that any energy deal with Kurdistan would be "an encroachment on the sovereignty of Iraq".

Source:  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/29/uk-turkey-iraq-oil-idUKBRE9AS06720131129

US urges talks for energy in East Med

Hürriyet Daily News

The United States has called for continued dialogue between Turkey and the relevant parties in exploring energy resources both in the Eastern Mediterranean as well as in Iraq.

Carlos Pascual, the U.S. special envoy, called for dialog among parties on the potential resources that are yet to be explored in the Eastern Mediterranean, at the Atlantic Council Summit in Istanbul.
Discoveries of significant amounts of gas around Cyprus have brought with them political problems, as Turkey raised objections about exploration and ownership rights before a political settlement was reached on the divided island. Strains in Israeli–Turkish relations further complicated the transport of gas to a European market via Turkey, which experts agree will be the most commercial way.

It is too early to predict how Eastern Mediterranean gas will reach international markets according to Pascual, who said conversations between countries and companies would be critical to find the most commercially viable and politically acceptable solution.

Meanwhile Leonardo Bellodi, senior vice-president for public Affairs of ENİ said “things looked improved compared to a year ago,” when asked by the Hürriyet Daily News. Turkey had warned companies last year not to go ahead with exploration works in the Mediterranean or face consequences.

Iraq Kurds to Pump Oil to Turkey in Truce With Baghdad

Bloomberg        Selcan Hacaoğlu & Onur Ant

Iraq’s Kurds plan to start pumping oil to Turkey next month via a pipeline controlled by the central government in Baghdad, signaling an easing of their dispute over resources, according to two people familiar with the plan.

The new line will take Kurdish oil into the existing pipe that runs from Kirkuk in Iraq to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, initially carrying 150,000 barrels a day starting in December, according to the Turkish energy industry officials who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. An Iraqi energy industry manager, who requested anonymity for the same reason, said the state oil company has accounted for the extra oil in 2014 plans.

Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdish Regional Government’s natural resources minister, said at a press conference last month that the 40-kilometer pipeline will have a capacity of 300,000 barrels a day. Mehmet Sepil, president of London-listed Genel Energy, said at the same conference that the pipeline from Dohuk to Fishkabur on the Turkish border will carry 200,000 barrels a day from its Tawke and Taq Taq fields.

The Iraqi official said the Kurdish oil will be metered when it feeds into the main pipeline, at Fishkabur near the Turkish border, and again when it arrives at Ceyhan.

The agreement signals a truce on the issue between the Iraqi Kurds, who say they should have control over oil and gas resources in the north, and the Baghdad government, which argues that all energy transactions need central approval.

Iraq’s Kurdish region pursues ties with Turkey — for energy revenue and independence

The Washington Post   Ben Van Heuvelen

As the rest of Iraq descends into a crisis of deepening violence, the autonomous enclave of Kurdistan is enlisting the help of an unlikely ally, Turkey, to reach for a long-delayed dream of independence.

In many ways, Iraqi Kurdistan already acts like a sovereign state. Kurdish authorities provide all public services, command their own army and control their own borders — including their heavily guarded southern border with ­Arab-majority provinces of Iraq. In Irbil, the Kurdish capital, most government buildings fly the Kurdish flag — not the flag of Iraq — and many members of the younger generation never learned Arabic and speak only Kurdish.

Until now, however, the Kurds have remained tightly tied to Baghdad because they depend on the Iraqi treasury for the vast majority of their regional budget.

That could soon change.

Putting aside years of hostility, Turkish and Kurdish leaders are quietly implementing an energy partnership agreement, signed earlier this year, that promises to provide the Kurdistan region with an independent stream of oil revenue.

The first major step in the plan is a pipeline that runs directly to Turkey, beyond Baghdad’s reach, and that will begin operating by the end of the year, according to the Kurdistan region’s minister of natural resources, Ashti Hawrami.

“It is our duty as Iraqis to pursue export routes for oil and gas, to secure our future,” Hawrami said.

Iraq vows to work with BP on controversial oil field

AFP

Iraq said Wednesday it would proceed with work alongside British energy giant BP on a controversial northern oilfield, in a move likely to spark anger in the country's Kurdish region.

The development of the Kirkuk oilfield, which lies amid a swathe of disputed territory in north Iraq, is at the heart of a row over land, oil revenues and the powers of the central government that has been raging for years between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Kirkuk provincial Governor Najm al-Din Omar Karim and BP chief executive Bob Dudley visited the field after holding talks in the province's eponymous capital.

"The contract with the British company will be executed by treating the decline in oil production at Kirkuk oilfield, which has reached 230,000 barrels (per day), and the company will work on surveying the fields and sites of Kirkuk oilfield throughout the contract period," Luaybi told AFP.

Current output represents a significant drop off from the field's peak, and Iraqi officials hope to increase production to 500,000 barrels per day in three years.
 

Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan clinch major energy pipeline deals

REUTERS        Hümeyra PAMUK & Orhan COSKUN

Iraqi Kurdistan has finalized a comprehensive package of deals with Turkey to build multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines to ship the autonomous region's rich hydrocarbon reserves to world markets, sources involved in talks said on Wednesday.

The deals, which could have important geo-political consequences for the Middle East, could see Kurdistan export some 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil to world markets and at least 10 billion cubic meters per year of gas to Turkey.

Such a relationship would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when Ankara enjoyed strong ties with Iraq's central Baghdad government and was deep in a decades-long fight with Kurdish militants on its own soil.

But Turkey imports almost all of its energy needs and growing demand means it faces a ballooning deficit, making the resources over its southeastern border hard to ignore.

During a visit to Istanbul last week by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) prime minister Nechirvan Barzani, both sides agreed on the fundamentals of the deals and mapped out technical details for a second oil pipeline and a gas route from Iraq's north to Turkey, sources involved in the talks said.

Iraq says Big Oil to spend $25 bln next yr, despite unrest

REUTERS     Peg Mackey and Ahmed Rasheed

 
* Foreign oil firms due to spend over $25 bln in 2014
* Oil output in south expected to rise by average 500,000 bpd
* Giant southern oilfields, central fields seen safe from attack
* Smaller Nineveh oilfields, Anbar gasfield more vulnerable
* China seeks over 1 million bpd of Iraqi crude

Big Oil is poised to spend over $25 billion next year to boost output from Iraq's giant oilfields towards record rates, Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy said, even as Baghdad struggles to control spillover from the civil war in Syria.

Far from harm's way, the prized oilfields of southern Iraq - drivers of the country's oil expansion - are expected to pump an extra 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2014, said Hussain al-Shahristani. Total output this year is set to average just over 3 million bpd, holding Iraq's rank as OPEC's no. 2 producer.

But Baghdad is raising its guard at the smaller fields of Najmah and Qayara - operated by Angolan Sonangol, which lie in the al-Qaeda heartland of Nineveh province in the northwest and at the Akkas gasfield, operated by South Korea's Kogas, in the western Anbar province near the Syrian border, he said.

"We are definitely concerned about the upsurge in violence, but our concern is for the Iraqi people throughout the country. Iraq is trying its best to combat terrorism," he said in an interview in his office in the heavily fortified green zone.

"The security situation has not affected the oilfields in the south and central Iraq and we haven't noticed any hesitation or slow down in investment by the companies."

Baghdad says still opposes KRG oil pipeline

Iraq PM Maliki and Iraq Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani

REUTERS   Ahmed Rasheed and Peg Mackey

Baghdad said it is still firmly opposed to Iraqi Kurdistan's plan for an independent oil pipeline through Turkey, insisting that only the central government has the right to export crude.

Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani, told Reuters he had conveyed Baghdad's views to Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz.

"Turkey is aware of Iraq's concern and total rejection of that (KRG pipeline) plan. We have reminded Turkey that this is in breach of the agreement between the two countries that regulates exports from Iraq through the Turkish pipeline," al-Shahristani told Reuters.

"Turkey assured us they respect that agreement and they will not allow any export of Iraqi crude without the permission of the federal government in

Turkey's pipe dreams

Arabian Business       Lionel Mok

Turkey has continued to make the headlines in the Middle East’s oil and gas industry over the last several months due to a number of factors which include the growing divide between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI); and the recent signing of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeiline (TAP) and Trans-Anatolian Pipelines (TANAP).

Despite its unremarkable national oil production industry that produces, on average, 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) from reserves that total approximately 270 million barrels of oil, the country has made itself critical to the world’s energy market, while also managing to satisfy growing domestic consumption of over 700,000 bpd.

Turkey owes its gravitational pull in the energy market to its physical geography. As the only landmass standing between the Middle East and Europe, and also the Black and Mediterranean Seas, Turkey is well positioned to become an energy hub and a transit point.

The country is in proximity to 71.8% of the world’s proven gas reserves and 72.7% of the world’s proven oil reserves. It neighbors Iran, Iraq the recently discovered Eastern Mediterranean reserves near Lebanon; and it is less than 250 kilometers away from the Caspian Sea, home of the world’s largest oil discovery in the last thirty years.

By 2004, the Turkish straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanalles, had the capacity to transit 3.4 million barrels of oil to European markets every day. At the same time, a terminal on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast at Ceyhan, facilitates oil exports from northern Iraq via a pipeline from Kirkuk and from Azerbaijan through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline is Turkey’s largest, with a capacity of 1.65 million bpd.

The planned TANAP will include a natural gas pipeline system running from the Georgia-Turkey border to the Turkey-Greece border, while the TAP, will transport the same natural gas from Greece via Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Italy and further to markets throughout Western Europe.

Iraq Central Government Threatens to Cut Revenue to Kurds Over Pipeline to Turkey

Bloomberg Business Week

Iraq central government threatened to cut oil revenue to the Kurdish north in a deepening standoff over a new export pipeline that companies from DNO International ASA (DNO) to Genel Energy Plc (GENL) plan to use to ship crude from the region.

The government in Baghdad may refuse to give the 17 percent of annual earnings from oil sales allocated to the semi-autonomous Kurdish provinces if they bypass central authorities and start operating a link through Turkey by year-end, Hussain al-Shahristani, deputy prime minister for energy affairs, said in an interview in Dubai yesterday.

“We have our options, and you will hear them when we adopt measures, as this is a big loss for Iraq,” he said. “No Iraqi would accept that they take 17 percent of Iraq’s revenue from crude produced outside of Kurdistan and at the same time all of the revenue of the crude produced in Kurdistan.”

 

The Kurdistan Regional Government halted crude exports through the government-run pipeline in December amid a dispute with the Oil Ministry in Baghdad over the sharing of crude sales revenue and payments owed to companies such as DNO and Genel Energy. The Kurds, who are building export pipelines as a step toward self-sufficiency, estimate their oil reserves at 45 billion barrels.

The Iraqi government insists that the Kurds link their new crude export pipeline to the main government pipe at a metering station near the Turkish border, Shahristani said.

“They refused and said they want to link it after the metering station to prevent the Iraqi government from knowing the quantity of crude they are exporting,” he said. “The real problem is that they don’t want anyone to know how much they are producing and selling.” 

Anglo-Turkish company discovers new oil in KRG

Hurriyet Daily News

Genel Energy, Anglo-Turkish oil and gas independent, has announced that it has discovered new commercial oil reserves in northern Iraq.

In a written statement yesterday, Genel Energy confirmed the existence of a commercial oil discovery in the Ber Bahr 1 exploration well in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRG).

“The Ber Bahr well adds a further commercial oil discovery to Genel’s already significant KRI resource base,” the statement said. The company plans to begin a phased development of the field in the second half of this year. Genel Energy holds a 40 percent working interest in Ber Bahr. Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd holds a 40 percent working interest and the KRG holds the remaining 20 percent interest.

Genel Energy now operates in seven sites in the KRG, including Chia Surkh, Dohuk, Miran, Bina Bawi, Taq Taq, and Kewa Chirmila. However, there is a long-running dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous KRG over how to develop the country’s resources.

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/anglo-turkish-company-discovers-new-oil-in-krg.aspx?pageID=238&nID=47921&NewsCatID=348

Turkey offers pipelines to Cyprus, Israel, Iraq

Hurriyet Daily News

Israeli and Greek Cypriot officials and representatives of Turkish Cyprus all agree on the reality that natural gas produced in the eastern Mediterranean will get its utmost feasibility by a pipeline passing through Turkey, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız tells the Daily News

Energy-hungry Turkey has offered to cooperate with its oil and gas-rich southern neighbors for the exploration and transportation of their hydrocarbon products to world markets via Turkey. It has particularly called out to Israel and Cyprus, which recently had problems over the legality of the licenses issued for petroleum exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. 
“Israeli officials, local officials in Greek Cyprus and representatives of the TRNC [Turkish Republic of the Northern Cyprus], they have all agreed on one reality: The natural gas to be produced from this region will get its utmost feasibility by a pipeline that will pass through Turkey. All relevant figures prove this idea,” Energy Minister Taner Yıldız told the Hürriyet Daily News in a comprehensive interview outlining the Turkish government’s energy policies regarding oil and gas reserves of its southern neighbors.

Yıldız held substantial meetings with acting Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman and U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy for energy issues Carlos Pascual last week in Washington. The meetings were crucially important as the two allies found themselves on opposite sides on a number of issues related to Baghdad-Ankara tension over the latter’s growing interest in making deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government and to the Turkey-Cyprus quarrel over the Greek Cypriot government’s ambitious moves for oil exploration in the disputed areas of the Mediterranean.

Kurdish crude sales to rise as exports reach second Turkish port

Reuters          Julia Payne and Peg Mackey


* Taq Taq crude exports to reach about 60,000 bpd by end June
* Kurdistan to start deliveries to second terminal in Turkey
* Crude in steady stream to Northern Europe


Iraqi Kurdistan's crude oil sales to world markets, deemed illegal by Baghdad, are set to rise by nearly 50 percent next month as trucks start deliveries to a second export terminal in Turkey, industry sources in the region said on Wednesday.

Crude exports from the Taq Taq oilfield in the autonomous northern region to Turkey's Mersin port started at a trickle in early January and have risen to just over 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

They are expected to hit around 60,000 bpd by the end of June as trucks unload at the neighbouring Dortyol terminal in southern Turkey.

Oil lies at the heart of a feud between the central government and Kurdistan. Baghdad says it alone has the right to control exports and sign deals, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution.

In retaliation, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) sent letters warning customers not to touch any oil that had not been marketed by SOMO and the ministry intends to sue producers, namely Anglo-Turkish firm Genel Energy.

Turkey eyes oil, gas deals with Iraqi Kurdistan

Reuters


Turkey is looking to sign commercial contracts this year with Russian and U.S. companies operating in northern Iraq for joint oil and gas exploration, Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last week discussed U.S. concerns about Turkey's deepening energy ties with Iraqi Kurdistan during meetings in Washington with President Barack Obama.


Minutes before his departure for Washington, Erdogan announced that a Turkish company already had a contract in place with U.S. energy company Exxon Mobil but declined to provide details until after the visit.
Yildiz, who was in Erdogan's delegation, said the discussions with Obama and his team were very positive and fruitful.

"We are likely to be involved with Russian and American companies in northern Iraq for different projects like oil and gas exploration. And this year, state-owned and private companies could sign commercial contracts with northern Iraq," he said in an interview.

He declined to name companies.

Exxon was the first to sign up for exploration deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Others including Chevron, Total and Russia's Gazprom Neft have followed.

Turkey-Kurdish oil deal reflects end of post-Ottoman order

David Gardner      Financial Times

Confirmation last week that Turkey plans to buy into the oil and gas wealth of the self-governing Kurdish region of northern Iraq has led to warnings – most stridently from the US – that Ankara is gambling with the break-up of Iraq. Indeed. But there is more at stake than that. Drop a rock in any pool in this febrile region – now hyperconnected in all the wrong ways – and the ripples will reach every shore.

In Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the national authorities in Baghdad are nowhere near a pact for sharing the country’s potentially huge oil revenues, much less a working model of federal power-sharing – with the Baghdad government of Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia Islamist aligned with Iran, invariably favouring sect and faction above state and nation.

But the future of Iraq is now just part of a discussion about the possible break-up of bits of the Middle East, given new urgency by the disintegration of Syria under the pulverising effect of two years of civil war.

That conflict has prised loose the Kurdish region of northeast Syria, galvanising Turkey into making peace with its own Kurds and drawing Iraqi and Syrian Kurds into an economically dynamic Turkosphere.

That this debate is only just starting suggests just how problematic it is – and how immense its possible consequences. What is in play is the state system that succeeded the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago in Syria and Mesopotamia.

Turkey agrees energy deal with Kurdish north Iraq

Daniel Dombey        Financial Times

Turkey has defied both Washington and Baghdad by agreeing an energy deal with the north of Iraq that the US warns could further fracture the Middle Eastern state, but which Ankara sees as central to its own future.

Several Turkish officials confirm Ankara struck a secretive framework agreement earlier this year with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of Northern Iraq for Turkish state energy companies to take stakes in the region’s oil and gasfields. They add the deal is still so sensitive that it is unlikely to be acknowledged publicly until after a visit by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington this week, a trip that takes place against a backdrop of increased tension in Iraq itself.

The agreement, together with Turkey’s political opening towards its own Kurdish population, is set to bolster Ankara’s influence in the energy-rich north of Iraq and could help it generate sufficient energy supplies to meet its ambitious growth targets. Mr Erdogan has previously described the deal as a “win win”.

Kurdish officials welcome closer relations. “Let’s be honest: Turkey is our door to the world,” said one, pointing to the KRG’s problematic ties with other neighbours. “Look at the [strained] situation with Iran, Syria, the rest of Iraq . . . Turkey is a big power in the region and, if it follows good policies like at the moment, why not be an ally?”

But the central Iraqi government in Baghdad says that without its permission the energy agreement violates the Iraqi constitution. A direct pipeline link to Turkey under the deal would give the KRG, which already has its own military force, much greater economic independence than before. At present, the only export pipelines available to the region are federally controlled and the KRG has halted exports through them because of a budget dispute with Baghdad.

High quality oil in KRG holds ‘Turkish interest’

AA

Since Turkish firms have discovered high quality oil in northern Iraq, Turkey cannot remain indifferent to the oil and natural gas resources, says an executive of Genel Energy that has discovered oil in the Chia Surkh.

Turkey cannot remain indifferent to the oil and natural gas resources in northeastern Iraq, an executive of Genel Energy has said, as Genel Energy and Petoil have discovered quite high quality oil in the Chia Surkh site.

“We have got to know the region’s geological structure very well. The reserves are good. And there could be even more reserves far beyond those announced until now, both oil and natural gas,” Genel Energy’s Head of Government and Public Affairs Pars Kutay said. According to Kutay, these reserves are quite above the levels which Turkey needs. “We believe that for an energy hungry country which has limited energy resources, like Turkey, it does not seem possible to be indifferent to such huge sources just 150-200 km away from its borders” Kutay added.