"Turkey is interested in Israeli gas," said Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz at an energy conference in Istanbul on Wednesday. Yildiz, who gave the conference's keynote speech, added, "Although there are political problems, they are solvable."
The European Energy Summit, hosted by UK weekly "The Economist", was held at Istanbul's Swissotel. Participants includes representatives of Israeli energy companies and companies operating in Israel, such as Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL).
Israeli, Turkish, and foreign companies discussed laying a pipeline from the Leviathan gas field to southern Turkey at a cost of $2-3 billion. The pipeline could supply 8-10 billion cubic meters (BCM) of natural gas a year to Turkey.
Most of the gas would be used by Turkey's rapidly growing economy, and some would probably be sent from Turkey to Greece and other EU countries. Turkey, which has no gas reserves of its own, currently imports 44 BCM a year, two-thirds from Russia and the rest from Azerbaijan and Iran, as well as expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Algeria.
Only a price of at least $10 per million BTU would justify exporting Israeli gas to Turkey, estimates APCO Worldwide Istanbul managing director Zeynep Dereli. At a conference at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore last Thursday, she said that settling the political disputes between Cyprus, Turkey, and Israel was a precondition for gas exports.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 31, 2013
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