Company eyes gas storage in Turkey

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Tourists enjoy the semi-dried up Lake Tuz in central Anatolia. Turkey has been discussing for years whether to place natural gas storage facilities under the lake.

Sky Harvest Windpower has announced that it has formed a joint venture corporation under the name Levant Energy, a British Columbia Canadian corporation, to develop underground natural gas storage plants in Turkey. 

“We believe this project will complement our current portfolio of wind power properties and allow us to potentially become a diversified energy provider,” said Sky Harvest’s President, William Iny in the press release.

Sky Harvest has chosen Bertan Atalay of The Hague, Netherlands, to be Levant Energy’s President and Chief Executive Officer. 

“We are in the process of studying various areas that we think are highly appropriate for the development of Gas Storage in Turkey. In addition, our purpose at Levant Energy is to develop potential projects located in more than one area. It would be too premature to announce those locations at this time,” said Mr. Atalay in a written response to Hürriyet Daily News. 

Sky Harvest will initially hold a 65 percent interest in the joint venture by investing $500,000 in the newly formed subsidiary. The investment is subject to certain conditions, including Sky Harvest’s completion of further equity or debt funding in order to finance the acquisition. The joint venture intends to use these proceeds to identify and commence securing proposed natural gas storage sites, as well as starting associated permitting processes. 

Currently, Turkey’s installed storage capacity is approximately 4 percent and there are only two adjacent, seasonal, natural gas storage sites operating in the country, with one additional site to be developed. In contrast, there are over approximately 750 independent natural gas storage firms in Canada and the United States. 

Deniz Gürgen from Istanbul contributed to this report.