Türkiye aims for full energy independence, Erdoğan says
ISTANBUL
Türkiye has intensified its efforts to reduce its energy dependency with an objective of becoming fully independent in terms of supplying own energy needs, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stressed, citing a recent agreement with the United States on nuclear cooperation as an important development to this end.
In an address at the 11th Energy Efficiency Forum and Exhibition in Istanbul on Oct. 6, Erdoğan informed about ongoing efforts to diversify energy resources while investing more into national reserves.
“As in all other areas, we will continue to work until we achieve our goal of a fully energy-independent Türkiye. While we are simultaneously exploring our own resources, we are also exerting efforts to ensure the security of our energy supply in response to growing demand,” he stated.
Türkiye is consuming around one million barrels of oil per day, with only 160,000 barrels of that coming from national reserves, Erdoğan said, adding the country needs to do more to reduce energy imports despite recently discovered natural gas resources in the Black Sea.
“To close this gap as soon as possible, we have expanded our fleet and accelerated our seismic exploration and drilling activities,” the president stated.
“Our natural gas consumption, which was 17.4 billion cubic meters in 2002, rose to 53.2 billion cubic meters in 2024. Our forecast for 2025 is 59.5 billion cubic meters,” Erdoğan said, informing that Türkiye paid $26 billion for energy imports in just the first eight months of this year.
“We are working diligently to reduce this bill,” he said. It is also crucial for Türkiye to diversify energy sources in order not to face troubles in the future, Erdoğan recalled, saying “Being dependent on a single country, source and single line for supply poses serious risks.”
Nuclear energy cooperation with the US
Nuclear energy is another field in which Türkiye is working intensely Erdoğan said, informing that the first electricity will be soon generated by the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.
“We have other nuclear projects other than Akkuyu. Our talks regarding them are ongoing. We have discussed these issues during our latest visits to China and the United States,” the president said.
Recalling that Türkiye and the U.S. signed an agreement on peaceful use of nuclear energy during his visit to the U.S. late September, Erdoğan underlined that this deal covered cooperation on advanced reactor technologies and small modular reactors.
“We will use nuclear energy for medicine, agriculture, research and industrial heat apart from generating electricity. Thus, as the government, we are working with a long-term understanding to sustain our supply security for the next 20-30 years,” he added.
