Energy stock exchange will not be arm of İMKB

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet

The government is working on a strategy to launch an energy bourse. AA photo

An energy bourse will soon be established as an independent entity in Turkey, which needs, by some estimates, $10 billion of investments in the energy sector every year, according to sources. The energy bourse will not operate under the umbrella of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (İMKB), but the state will partner it, sources said.

“The name of the energy bourse is Enerji Piyasaları İşletme A.Ş. (EPİAŞ). We prefer the İMKB to be part of the efforts, but EPİAŞ will be a standalone entity,” İbrahim Etem Erten, the group president at the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK), said last week at the 18th International Energy and Environment Fair and Conference (ICCI) in Istanbul.

Ertan said it is possible for the İMKB to have a stake in EPİAŞ in addition to the state. The energy bourse will need the expertise of the state-run Turkish Electricity Transmission Company (TEİAŞ) and BOTAŞ, the state natural gas distributor. “It will be beneficial if TEİAŞ and BOTAŞ are part of the [energy bourse] structure,” he said, adding that a “serious” decision will be made within several weeks regarding the energy bourse.

The energy bourse will ease concerns energy investors may have about selling the energy they have produced, said a commercial director at Enerjisa, the energy subsidiary of Sabancı Holding.

Benchmark prices will be helpful in achieving a free energy market, he added.

“A bourse is needed for medium and long-term planning. We forecast future production based on our own models. If there was a bourse, we would have seen prices for the next three or four years,” he said.