ADAPAZARI - Motherland Party (ANAP) leader, State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz attended the opening ceremony of Adapazari-Gebze natural gas combit circle on Saturday.
Addressing the ceremony of Adapazari-Gebze natural gas combit circle which was constructed by ENKA and INTERGEN companies' partnership, Yilmaz said that two of the biggest energy investments of Turkey have been opened the same day and that the stations are the biggest private sector investment and the biggest foreign capital investment in Turkey.
''In my opinion, the real agenda of Turkey has to be investment like the one we opened today,'' he said.
Yilmaz said that the energy consumption per capita in Turkey is half of the world average, stressing that Turkey has to maintain the balance between energy demand and supply.
Yilmaz stressed that the bottleneck in energy sector can reach the level of causing an economic bottleneck, adding that the energy inputs in Turkey can't only depend on oil and natural gas sources.
Noting that the energy investments of Turkey are generally carried out by the state, Yilmaz said that the limited public resources cause problems in providing the energy that is needed. The power stations which have been opened will meet 26 percent of the total production in Turkey, Yilmaz said, adding that the projects started in 1997 have ensured the total production of energy which was produced in the country throughout the Republic history, only in five years.
Yilmaz said that the state did not provide any money for those projects whose investment cost was 2.2 billion U.S. dollars and added, ''various speculations are being made with comparing the cost of electricity energy produced in natural gas power plants and the other energies. This comparison is logically wrong.''
He said that it was true that the cost of the electricity which was produced from the hydraulic sources was very low and added that but the capacity to activate those sources with the current possibilities of Turkey was limited.
Yilmaz went on to say that thermic sources caused serious environmental problems.
Stating that their approaches on the natural gas was not only their energy policy but also Turkey's national energy policy, Yilmaz said that Blue Stream was also a national project which was put into practice within this framework.
He said that they had determination to continue their struggle to make Turkey democratic, free, developed and peaceful country and added that they would continue to support every person, organization and project which would contribute Turkey in its fight for development till the very end.
Yilmaz later opened the Adapazari and Gebze natural gas combit circle.