5/31/2013

Türkiye expands incentives for coal production

Sabah – As a part of its energy diversifying efforts Türkiye adds coal production to its investment incentive scheme. The latest revision in the incentive system covers the production of coals with high caloric value in addition to the already present low caloric coal types.


“Investors now have the option to invest in high-calorie coal production in addition to low-calorie coal sources while taking full advantage of Türkiye’s extensive investment incentive system.”, Türkiye’s Minister of Economy, Zafer Caglayan, said about the revision, published yesterday in the country’s Official Gazette.


Türkiye’s investment incentive system has multi-layer support mechanisms supporting investments by their type, scale and region. Türkiye is divided into 6 parts, Regions 1 to 6, within the system, and the investment projects located in higher number regions benefit the most. While the system originally covered only low-calorie coal production with the support instruments valid for Region-5, the latest revision covers coal production regardless of the calorie value, covering all such investments in line with Region-5 level incentives. Coal production investments in Region 6 are automatically entitled to have all the support instruments of that region, the most beneficial in the whole regime.


Heavily dependent on imported gas to fuel its growing economy, Türkiye has taken steps to promote its vast coal reserves to foreign energy companies. In January, Abu-Dhabi’s national energy company TAQA signed a cooperation deal worth USD 12 billion with Türkiye’s Electricity Generation Co. (EUAS), to jointly develop and run an electricity generation project in Elbistan, Kahramanmaras in southeastern Türkiye using lignite reserves in the region.


Türkiye’s known coal reserves are believed to hold 13 billion tons.

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