Energy bourse ‘should be based’ in Istanbul

ISTANBUL - Anadolu Agency

Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief-economist, says Turkey’s energy bourse should be based in Istanbul. AA photo

Turkey’s planned energy bourse, which should especially be based in Istanbul, will make a significant contribution to the country’s potential to be able to make an annual $10 billion of investments in energy, chief-economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol said yesterday.

“The planned energy bourse will definitely have a leverage effect on Turkey’s future energy investments by creating a fertile ground for the private sector to finance new energy projects,” Birol said.

He noted that Turkey needed to make an annual $10 billion of energy investments to meet its rapidly increasing energy demands. And the country’s annual energy expenses will reach around $65-70 billion in the coming five or six years.

“The biggest advantage of the energy bourse will be to give clear ideas about how to make those investments, also creating benchmark prices. These will facilitate the financing of the future energy projects by attracting more [local and foreign] direct investment and making the market more competitive,” Birol said.

The founding capital of the planned energy bourse in Turkey will be around 40 million Turkish Liras and the private sector will have a share in the bourse, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said in July.

The share of the Turkish Electricity Transmission Company (TEİAŞ) will be around 30 percent and of Borsa Istanbul will be 30 percent, in the energy bourse, in which the private sector will also take a share.

The pendulum had then swung toward the Turkish capital of Ankara as the base of the bourse, according to a draft contract for the energy bourse by the Turkish energy watchdog, Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK), but Yıldız said the ministry and others had not decided whether the energy bourse would be in Ankara or Istanbul. While the private sector wants the energy bourse to be based in Istanbul, the public sector wants Ankara, energy analysts say.