Turkey Signs With China’s Tianchen to Construct Gas Storage

Turkey agreed with China Tianchen Engineering Corp. to construct up to 1 billion cubic meters of underground natural gas storage capacity in the center of the country.

The project near Tuz Golu, a lake south of Ankara, will be the biggest Chinese investment in Turkey to date, Fazil Senel, director of state pipeline operator Botas Boru Hatlari Ile Petrol Tasima AS, or Botas, told reporters today. Financing for the project, estimated at about $640 million, is provided by a World Bank loan signed in 2006.

Tianchen will construct the first 500 million cubic meters of storage by 2016 and the second by 2019.

The facility will be able to release as much as 40 million cubic meters of gas into the Turkish grid daily and will have an operational life of 10 years, Senel said.

(bloomberg.com)