Turkish Energy Minister: Kurdistan is our only solution to tackling gas prices

24.02.2014 – Mewan Dolamari – BasNews, Erbil – The Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Taner Yaldiz, said that importing Kurdish gas is the only way to address the expensive price of natural gas in Turkey.

So far 610,000 oil barrels from the Kurdistan Region have arrived to Turkey. Yaldiz told Turkish newspaper Sabah: “By Feb. 22 Kurdistan’s oil exportation to Turkey had reached 610,000 oil barrels. We have no other alternatives for production in Turkey, except Kurdistan’s oil.” He also noted that this is the only way to tackle the expensive price of natural gas in Turkey. “According to the oil agreement between Turkey and the Kurdistan Region, Turkey will carry out explorations in 13 different places in Kurdistan until the end of 2014. 300 to 400,000 oil barrels per day are expected to be exported to Turkey,” added Yaldiz.Kurdish oil export to Turkey has angered Baghdad, which in turn has warned both Kurds and Turks not to continue with their energy dealings without Iraq’s permission or they will black list all Turkish companies working in Iraq and stop the Kurdish share of Iraq’s budget.