World Bank approves additional $400m financing for Turkish gas project

The World Bank has approved an additional financing of $400m to the existing Gas Sector Development Project of Turkey.

The Turkish Government’s gas sector reforms and implementation strategy has been supported by the bank for the last ten years.

In November 2005, the bank approved the original $325m financing for the project, which aims to increase the reliability and stability of the gas supply in Turkey.

Plans under the project include the implementation of gas storage and network infrastructure, construction of a new gas storage facility and network expansion.

The project intends to support the Petroleum Pipeline Corporation of Turkey in expanding its operations as a financially stable and commercially managed corporation.

The bank said its additional loan will finance $400m of the cost overrun in the Tuz Golu gas storage facility, situated in an underground a salt lake in South Central Turkey.

After completion, the facility will have a storage capacity of around 960 million cubic metres of working gas and 460 million cubic metres of cushion gas.

The facility will also be capable of delivering 40 million cubic metres of gas a day for about 20 days.

The World Bank’s Turkey director Martin Raiser said natural gas consumption has increased rapidly in Turkey for the past 20 years.

"Natural gas accounts for almost one-third of the country’s primary energy supply, and fuels almost 50% of electricity generation," Raiser said.

"As household and industrial demand increase, natural gas storage facilities constructed under this project will help keep the cost of natural gas more stable across the seasons, give better security of supply, and encourage the construction of gas distribution networks."