DM Monitoring
ANKARA: A proposition has been made to set up an official energy dialogue between Turkey and the United States, a report said Tuesday, in an effort to cooperate more closely with the support of sector representatives.
The platform between the two governments will focus on cooperation in the energy transformation, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and renewable resources while evaluating joint opportunities in other countries.
The proposal is said to have been made on the sidelines of Deputy Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar’s visit to Washington last week, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.
Bayraktar had discussed energy cooperation between Turkey and the U.S. with executives from prominent American energy companies at an event held by the Investment Office and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Turkey Business Council Jennifer Miel said they expect American companies to play a critical role in securing Turkey’s energy future through investment projects and as a supporter of domestic firms.
“There is a strong dialogue between the U.S. energy industry and the Turkish authorities on new projects related to LNG, renewable energy sources, technologies and recent discoveries in the region,” Miel told media.
A report last month claimed Turkey has shared data on its Black Sea hydrocarbon discoveries with U.S. energy majors, including Chevron and Exxon Mobil, ahead of possible cooperation extracting the gas.
Ankara has so far insisted it would develop the 540 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas it discovered in the Black Sea region’s Sakarya field on its own and has been cool to foreign corporate interest.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez late last month stressed that sharing technical information about the site where the discovery was made is out of the question.
He recalled earlier signals there could be cooperation both in the engineering and consulting segments of the work, as well as in the supply of materials and construction stages.
Energy cooperation is thought to have the potential to help ease rifts between the NATO allies, including over Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems.
