Chinese company to invest in Turkey’s energy sector

Güneş Kömürcüler ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

A coal-fired thermal power plant which is constructed by CMEC in the southeastern Anatolian province of Şırnak is seen in the picture.

The China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), which has been active in Turkey since the mid-1980s in the fields of engineering, procurement and construction energy projects, is now seeking to make direct investment in Turkey, the company CEO and president has told the Hürriyet Daily News.

“Turkey is very important to us with its huge potential in energy development. Now the share of our activities in the country has exceeded 5 percent of our global revenue. We had held over $3 billion of projects here in Turkey, adding $1 billion more by the end of this year. Now we plan to make direct investment in Turkey, mainly in the fields of power generation, transmission or distribution,” Zhang Chun said.

CMEC plans to put in $50 million to $100 million in equity capital, but with a significant amount of credit from Chinese banks for the planned project.

“We have already had talks with a number of potential local partners, and our teams have been working on the details of the power generation and power distribution sectors of Turkey, which is very developed in the construction industry. We will make the required acquisitions from Turkey both in construction materials and services as well,” Chun said.

He added that there was a great potential for growth in the future, particularly in Turkey’s coal-fired power generation and renewable energy production.

Many firsts in Turkey

The company already has an office in Ankara and its representatives now plan to launch an Istanbul office.

CMEC has also realized a number of firsts in Turkey. It initially entered the market by engineering and supplying equipment for small-scale hydroelectric power plants. In 1994, CMEC undertook a project for the Turkish State Coal Mining Administration, involving two sets of domestically manufactured comprehensive coal mining equipment worth $18 million. For the first time in that project, the Turkish side agreed to use the buyer credits of the Chinese side, setting an example for Chinese financial institutions to offer commercial loans to Turkish enterprises.

CMEC has stepped into Turkey’s thermic power market in the 2000s. After a number of cooperation agreements with local companies, in 2007 it signed with a local firm an EPC contract for a 600 MW supercritical coal-fired power plant, the first such project by CMEC abroad.

Based on the financial data derived from ENR’s top 225 international contractors list, in 2011, CMEC ranked sixth among global international contractors in terms of total revenue generated from international contracting work in the power sector performed in 2010. k HDN