Turkey may ‘reconsider’ local Eni investments over Greek Cyprus ties

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Minister Taner Yıldız addresses a group of journalists in Ankara. Turkey will keep buying Iranian gas, Yıldız says. AA photo

Turkey will reconsider Eni’s investments in Turkey if the Italian energy company cooperates with Greek Cyprus in exploring oil fields in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız has said.

It is not right to seek oil in an area disputed by international law, Yıldız said in response to journalists’ questions at an Ankara meeting yesterday.

“If Eni goes into such a thing, then we will think over their Turkey investments. As you know, it has a share in the Samsun-Ceyhan [pipeline], and of course we might put this on our agenda. Of course, we do not find it right that Eni works with Greek Cyprus in an area that belongs to the whole of Cyprus,” he said.

Eni businesses

Samsun-Ceyhan is a crude pipeline planned to span Turkey from the Black Sea province of Samsun to the oil hub Ceyhan in the south. Eni, Russia’s Rosneft and Transneft and Turkey’s Çalık are partners in the project.

Eni is also a partner to the Blue Stream, a transport system running beneath the Black Sea that supplies Russian natural gas to Turkey. With a transport capacity of 16 billion cubic meters annually, it is the main Russian natural gas link to Turkey and owned and operated by Blue Stream Pipeline Company BV (BSPC), a joint venture between Eni and Russian Gazprom.

Greek Cyprus approved earlier this week licenses for the exploratory drilling of oil and gas deposits in four blocks off its shores, a move that may increase existing tensions with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean after it began searching for fuel there with U.S. company Noble last year. Greek Cypriot Commerce Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis announced that the government would negotiate a partnership with Eni, South Korea’s KOGAS, Italy’s Total and Ukraine’s Novatec for fields in the region. Turkey is strongly opposed to the Greek Cypriot explorations in the Eastern Mediterranean.