At the summit titled "Türkiye Century in Energy" organized by Albayrak Media at the beginning of the week, a very important meeting was held where all the actors of the Turkish energy sector came together. Türkiye's energy sector and policy were discussed in detail in the sessions to which participants from government officials, industry representatives and academicians contributed. Today, I will share with you my take on the meetings that took place under the scope of the summit.
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Dönmez made the opening speech of the summit. While drawing an important framework for Türkiye's energy vision, Dönmez gave information about the steps to reduce foreign dependency in energy. One of Dönmez's statements that marked this summit was the good news of the signing of a new gas supply agreement. As you know, Türkiye adopted a strategy to become both a serious natural gas consumer and a trading hub in natural gas. An important part of this strategy is to diversify the source countries of the gas coming to Türkiye. In this context, Dönmez gave the good news of a 10-year agreement with Oman. According to the agreement, 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas will be purchased annually from Oman. This is an important step both for Türkiye's needs and for the gas trade center target.
As you know, seismic scanning and drilling activities in the Black Sea continue. Let's also note that Dönmez said that the signs that there may be oil in the east of the Black Sea are getting stronger day by day with the current studies.
Another important news Dönmez gave is that Türkiye's 3rd FSRU ship is on its way. With this ship, we will have a new entry point for natural gas and another important process for the trade center target will be completed.
Of course, in all these steps, the vision of the "National Energy and Mining Policy", which was announced during Berat Albayrak's ministry and continued by Dönmez, has a very important contribution. Türkiye's negotiations with the source countries continue. Essentially, these talks have the feature of an “energy diplomacy”. On the other hand, Dönmez states that they offer cooperation in the field of exploration and production to gas and oil-supplying countries and that the positive response they received to this offer will bring results that will transform Turkish Petroleum into a global actor.
One of the most important topics of the summit was the natural gas reserve discovered in the Black Sea. Because the most serious problem in the current account deficit, which is Türkiye's chronic problem, comes from energy imports. In this respect, every cubic meter of gas discovered has strategic value. Meanwhile, Dönmez states that the gas discovered in the Black Sea and will be included in the system in the coming months strengthens Türkiye's hand in new supply agreements with other countries and creates a leverage effect.
Of course, Turkish Petroleum (TPAO) is one of the institutions that we have to give its due to in this regard. We listened to the current status of the institution, which was much discussed in the first days of the discovery, from the General Manager of Turkish Petroleum, Melih Han Bilgin. Emphasizing the experience and capabilities of Turkish Petroleum with the Black Sea field, Bilgin's briefing on the work and potential in the new fields is promising.
Türkiye has been taking serious steps in mining recently. The importance of the new field discovery, which includes especially rare earth elements and critically important mines for high technology, is obvious. According to the latest findings, Türkiye has the world's second-largest rare earth element mine. Dönmez uses the phrase "We are now processing ore and turning it into jewelry" while describing the strategy for extracting and processing every underground mineral.
The invited speaker of the meeting, Dr. Sohbet Karbuz also drew attention to the issue of critical mines and minerals, emphasizing that the importance of mines in the energy sector is increasing day by day. In other words, the importance of critical metals in the transformation process in energy is far beyond what is expected. Karbuz makes the following suggestion for Türkiye's strategy in this regard: "We must extract every underground mineral."
