Thank you very much. Can I say that I am delighted to be here and I am pleased and honored to be invited by the organizers of this Forum. We live in an era where interconnection around the world is becoming an increasing factor. The drivers of globalization are increasingly shaping the way relationships work around the world and the way economies develop and the key theme of course in this interconnection is how energy resources are delivered from where they are found in the earth to the markets, we are talking about hydro carbon resources. I am going be talking particularly about gas and I want to begin by just sharing with you a couple of thoughts about the way the global gas market is organized before I talk more particularly about Turkey.

This I think is a pretty familiar picture in terms of he role of gas amongst the other major sources of energy in the world and we are familiar I think with the idea that gas has grown automatically as an energy source and is developing faster then any of the other major energy sources so that the growth rate for gas as a source of energy around the world is approaching 3% and this is a pattern it is likely to continue the reasons are easy to understand relatively speaking gas has been a cheap source of energy not always the case now. It is abundant source of energy and it is also relatively clean. I think in addition to that a major element in meeting the increasing demand for power in the world. It is possible that those growth rates may flatten off but broadly speaking as the minister was saying gas is the key source of energy for the 21st century.

So where is all this gas going to come from and what you see there is a picture of the distribution of the major resources of gas around the world. And the picture there is a good one Turkey of course as the minister said about 70% of the world’s gas reserves are close or within economic distance of Turkey and you see that illustrated on that chart. So that is a good picture for Turkey as well as a positive one for the world.

But that brings me to the question of how do these gas reserves move around the world? I think it is important to understand how fast this picture is changing. Today and over the past 5 years also the dominant means of moving gas around has been by pipeline and what is happening now is that movement of gas by LNG by ship is an increasing element and what you see on this chart here is that the key gas markets of the world over the next 10 years will be the same as now, that is to say US and Europe but Far Eastern markets of Japan and Korea and increasingly India and China. The dominant supplies will continue to be pipeline but increasingly LNG is creating an option for resource holders to supply to different markets. This is a very significant element in the way the global gas picture is changing.

Now coming to Turkey, the information about the Turkish energy market is much better known to this audience then it is to me but let us just focus on the fact that gas is an increasing element of the energy demand in Turkey and it will continue to grow fast in the foreseeable future as the economy as a whole grows and as you can see from that chart the fastest growing element of the application of gas is in the power sector which is typical of many other countries.

So where is all this gas coming from into or potentially through Turkey? Well, the sources are obvious and some details have already be given so I won’t dwell on them but perhaps I can just pull out a couple of points here. If you think about the sources of Middle Eastern gas some of which have been mentioned for many of those sources they have market options. They are not dependent on transit through Turkey and they are not dependent on the European market. The far eastern market is growing very fast and most of the gas resources in the Middle East not all of them could service the growing far eastern market as opposed to the Western markets. In the Caspian and the gas from Azerbaijan is going to arrive shortly so that is a fact. In Central Asia the main uncertainty of course is where the distribution roots will be built. The minister referred to the Nobuko pipeline. The big question there of course is whether the Central Asian states will be able to find major ways of delivering gas reserves to market without being dependent on the Russian distribution system.

For Russia, Russia is already as you know is dominant supplier of gas to the Turkish market. I think something like 65% of all the gas in Turkey now comes from Russia and nearly 100% of all the electricity in Turkey generated by several means is generated from Russian gas so Russia is already a major supplier here. The minister has mentioned plans for extending the Russian pipeline system for example to Israel. I have to say I find the economics of that quite hard to understand because delivering Russian gas to Israel means bringing gas from Siberia to Israel when there is already a large supply of gas Egypt much closer to Israel so the economics of that seemed to me a bit hard to understand.

Here I just want to finish with some questions. We’ve already had reference to speech made by the Vice President Cheney; this will be an important element in dialogues about energy in future whether it is a new cold war or new set of problems I don’t know. But what it suggests is that the US has very clear aspirations as it had in relation to oil about where gas from this region will go. The EU has a perspective, I think that the EU has paid insufficient attention to the importance of Turkey as an energy corridor, it remains to be seen what happens there. I think the Russian strategy has some big question marks around it. How important is it for the Russians to prevent other sources of gas traveling through Turkey to Europe and in relation to Central Asia the huge question and I would see this is one of the most significant questions is whether there will be pipeline access to Europe for gas from Kazakhstan through Turkey. I think this is a huge question so in my mind along side these strategies of the gas suppliers in the region there is a key question in the heart of this and that is what does Turkey want to achieve here and does Turkey want to maximize its potential as an energy corridor and in Central Asia they say happiness is multiple pipelines or is it willing to allow the agendas of some of its external suppliers or the geo-political agenda to dominate the success it may have as an energy corridor. Thank you.


Questions - Answers

Question – Hikmet Üçışık: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi. Bugün Forum İstanbul’un ele aldığı enerji konusu teknolojinin üç mühim parametresinden birisidir. Enerji, malzeme ve kontrol birbirinin içersine geçmiş, detaylarını burada açıklamaya hiçbirimizin zamanı olmayan üç parametredir. Bu sahalarda gelişebilmek için rekabet edebilir, içersinde inovasyon olan teknolojileri üretecek bilimin ve bilim yapan kuruluşların teşviki ve bunların sağlam ellere verilmesi icap ettiği kanaatindeyim. Özet olarak söyleyeceğim bundan ibarettir. Saygılar sunarım.

Question – Naci Ekşi: Ben Sinan Bey’in gayet haklı olarak ortaya koyduğu bir konuya değinmek istiyorum. Sinan Bey dediler ki, enerji üretim alanlarından her biri kendi lobisini yapıp, iyi taraflarını söylüyor. Ama olumsuz taraflarını söylemiyor. Sanıyorum ki, kendisi doğal gazdan enerji üretim konusunun iyi taraflarını söylerken, olumsuzluklarını belirtmeyi unuttu. Ben bu konuda şunu söylemek istiyorum. Yılın başındaki doğal gaz sevkiyatındaki aksaklıklar dikkate alınırsa, ayrıca cari açığın bugünkü ulaştığı rakam da dikkate alınırsa, belki dışarıdan doğal gazı alıp, santralı kurup, elektriği satmak uygun ama bu söylediklerimin ışığında doğal gazdan elektrik üretmenin de olumsuz tarafları var mıdır? Değinebilirseniz çok mutlu olurum.

Question – Gökhan Rakıcı: Marmara Üniversitesi. Ben Sayın Bakanımıza bir soru soracağım. Kendisi sorulan sorulara çok samimi ve dürüstçe cevap verir. Bunu biliyorum. Umarım benim soruma da dürüstçe cevap verir. Son günlerde Türkiye’de çok gündemde olan bir konu var. Nükleer enerjiye, nükleer santrallara yönelmeyle ilgili. Acaba Türkiye bu nükleer santrala yönelirken, ne kadar Türkiye’nin enerjiye ihtiyacının olduğu, ne kadar Türkiye’nin nükleer teknolojiye sahip olma ihtiyacının olduğu. Misal, yanıbaşımızdaki “serseri mayın” Yunan’a karşı.

Question - Murat Oyar: Sayın Bakanım ABD nükleer atıklarını geçici olarak Yuka dağının altına gömüyor. Almanya yine atık sorunu nedeniyle bu tesislerini kapatmaya hazırlanıyor. Sinop’ta yapılması planlanan tesiste atık sorunu nasıl çözülecek ve 15 yıl beklenip, atık sorunu çözüldükten sonra yeni jenerasyon bir sistemle tesis yapılamaz mı?

Question - Mustafa Gerçek: Enka İnşaat’ın Genel Müdür Yardımcısıyım. Sayın Bakanımıza bir soru sormak istiyorum. Dün 4628 sayılı kanunda yapılması gereken değişikliklerin birinci ayağı tamamlandı. Dağıtım şebekelerinin özelleştirilmesi için galiba yasal bir kolaylık sağlanmış durumda. Acaba Sayın Bakanımız özelleştirme konusunda yeni bir takvim verebilirler mi? Bir de nükleerle ilgili. Ben nükleer enerjinin de Türkiye’nin gündemine girmesinin kaçınılmaz olduğunan inanan arkadaşlardan biriyim. Son günler oldukça yoğun bilgi toplandı. Acaba nükleer santralın yapım yöntemi konusunda berraklığa ulaşılabildi mi?

Mehmet Öğütçü: Let me just summarize for our panelists the questions, the first question is the importance of innovative and competitive energy technologies, what needs to be done to further support, competitive energy research and development technologies, gas to liquid, fusion technology, clea coal technologies may be you might wish to add couple more and perhaps Mr. Bland also about the natural gas perhaps. And the second question was negative aspects of using natural gas in power generation saying that we always emphasize the positive aspects, are there any negative aspects as well, question posed to Mr. Soydan. And another question was addressed to his excellency Mr. Guler about nuclear energy that Turkey is planning to introduce and problems that it might cause in terms of waste disposal and other issues and the last question was again addressed to him in terms of calander for privatization in power generation sector. We might start with innovative competitive technologies, how it could be supported?


I will just add few points. I agree with the points that have been made and there is no such thing perfect fuel of course and natural gas has disadvantage. It is a possible fuel for example so to finance resource and major capital is required in order to generate energy, electricity from it. On the other hand it is a more advantageous then many others, it is lower carbon and it is more available and the capital investment required to generate electricity through gas is lower then for example hydrate power. The key problem that can arise with dependence on gas for power generation is a problem that has arisen recently in my country, in Britain over the past years as they say dash for gas so now gas is the major source for power generation in the UK. The problem comes when the price of gas rises as it has in the UK recently and that has dramatic impact on the cost of industrial production. So the question for Turkey is not whether gas is a good source for power generation but can the market, which supplies the gas be guaranteed to operate in a sufficiently liberalized way to insure that the price of gas is held at a level which is positive in terms of economic development. So it is a question as construction is the market and the level of liberalization, that is the key issue.