Turkey to reduce imports of natural gas

Turkey's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said Tuesday Turkey aimed to reduce imports of natural gas until 2023, adding, "We will produce from the domestic sources instead of importing it." Attending the handover ceremony of Seyitomer Thermal Plant to a private energy company, Yildiz said they completed the privatization of the electricity distribution services and there were a lot of work to do. Yildiz said Turkey was in a serious struggle for reducing natural gas imports and using the domestic resources and added: "We aim to reduce imports of natural gas until 2023. The average of our annual gas imports is almost $12 billion. We will produce from the domestic sources instead of importing it." Pointing out that there were many coal mine reserves in Turkey, Yildiz emphasized that they would continue the energy investments to the coal reserves in towns of Konya's Karapinar, Afyonkarahisar's Dinar and Eskisehir's Alpu in Turkey.