Country to face no gas supply problems in winter: Minister

ISTANBUL

Türkiye will not have any gas supply problems this winter as the country has enough gas at its storage facilities, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said.

“The Silivri underground storage facility is 100 percent full. We are entering the winter well prepared,” the minister said after visiting the facility.

They are working on a project to boost the capacity of the Silivri storage facility to 5.6 to 6 billion cubic meters, Bayraktar said. “Thanks to investments made, the facility can now meet Istanbul’s natural gas demand alone.”

The Silivri facility is important in terms of supply security and for being the main base of the natural gas trade center in the future, Bayraktar said.

Its current capacity at 4.6 billion cubic meters will be increased by around 1 billion cubic meters to 5.6 to 6 billion cubic meters within the next 2-3 years, according to Bayraktar.

“It is also an environmentally friendly facility that meets all of its energy from renewable energy, and we will increase its capacity with a new wind turbine in the coming period,” the minister said.

Türkiye also has a second underground natural gas facility, the Tuz Gölü (Lake Salt) facility, in the central Anatolian province of Aksaray, with a 1.2 billion storage capacity.

The country aims to increase this facility’s capacity to 5.4 billion cubic meters with a daily gas withdrawal capacity of 80 million cubic meters.