Turkey's economy ministry is to offer up to $10 billion in incentives for the development of a new gas storage facility to be constructed near the provinces of Mersin and Hatay on Turkey's east Mediterranean coast, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported late Wednesday.
Anatolia quoted economy minister Nihat Zeybekci as stating that the new storage facility was intended to stabilize Turkey's gas supply security.
Zeybekci gave few details of the planned project beyond that it would be with a foreign partner, but did not make it clear whether the foreign partner would develop the facility alone or in partnership with a Turkish entity such as state oil company Turk Petrol which operates Turkey's only current gas storage facility or Botas which is developing the country's second such facility.
Zeybekci made no mention was made either of the possible capacity of the facility beyond that it would raise Turkey's storage capacity to a level where it could store enough gas to supply the country for one month.
Anatolia said Turkey's gas consumption in 2014 reached around 45 Bcm and that energy ministry plans foresee raising storage capacity to 10% of annual consumption by the end of 2019 and to 20% in the long term.
However a report published earlier this year by Turkey's energy market regulator put total consumption in 2014 at 48.72 Bcm and imports for the year at 49.262 Bcm.
Turkey's total gas import portfolio currently stands at 52.05 Bcm, with demand widely expected to come close to that this year.
Turkey's only operational gas storage facility in two exhausted underground gas reservoirs at Silivri on the northern side of the Sea of Marmara has a maximum capacity of 2.661 Bcm, equivalent to only 5.5% of 2014 consumption.
TP has announced plans to expand this facility first to 2.841 Bcm, and subsequently to 4.3 Bcm, which will give the facility a maximum injection capacity of 40 million cu m/day and a maximum extraction capacity of 75 million cu m/day, but has yet to announce when it expects the expanded capacity to begin operation.
In addition Botas is developing a new gas storage facility in salt deposits at Tuz Gollu in west central Turkey.
The first 500 million cu m storage of this facility is slated to be operational by the end of 2017 to be increased to 1 Bcm by the end of 2020.
Turkish energy minister Ali Riza Alaboyun announced recently that Botas will further increase the capacity of the facility to 1.5 Bcm, but gave no time frame.
In addition three private companies hold licenses to develop and operate private gas storage facilities.
Toren Dogalgaz and Gaz Depo ve Madencilik both hold licenses to develop and operate gas storage facilities at Mersin on Turkey's east Mediterranean coast while Atlas Petro Gaz, a subsidiary of Turkey's Calik Enerji, holds a license to develop a gas storage facility at a location that has not been disclosed.
No further details of any of the three projected storage facilities have been released and it is unclear whether any of the three are expected to be involved in the new project announced by Zeybekci.
The choice of Turkey's east Mediterranean provinces as a possible site is interesting. Neither Zeybekci nor any of the companies which hold licenses for developing facilities in the region have said whether the local geology is suitable.
The region has no known gas reserves of its own, no LNG import terminals bu the Botas operated transit line which runs from Turkey's main east-west transit line south into Mersin province is constructed of 40-inch pipe giving it a nominal capacity of around 20 Bcm/year, far more than the region around it could be expected to consume.
This indicates if a storage facility were to be constructed in the region existing transit lines could be used to move gas in and out of the facility.
