Annual energy imports to exceed $30 billion in 2007 (08.11.2007)

Turkey's import of energy -- including crude oil, fuel, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and coal -- reached $23.3 billion, one-fifth the country's total imports, in the first nine-month period of 2007.

Total energy imports for 2007 are expected to have a share between $31 and $32 billion within total imports, which are anticipated to reach $166 billion by the end of the year.

According to Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) data, energy imports for the January-September period totaled $21.3 billion in 2006, increasing to $23.2 for the same period in 2007. Last year's energy imports were equal to 19.3 percent of total imports, which were worth $139.5 billion; this constitutes one-fifth of Turkey's total imports. Energy's share in the overall import figures has rapidly increased in recent years. Energy accounted for a total of 16.7 percent of total imports in 2003, when prices were relatively low.

This amount decreased to 14.8 percent in 2004, but then increased to 18.2 percent in 2006 and 20.7 percent in 2007. Imports to Turkey totaled $69.3 billion, $97.5 billion and $116.7 billion in 2003, 2004 and 2005, respectively; energy imports were equal to $11.5 billion, $14.4 billion and $21.2 billion in the same years. Turkey’s energy exports, worth $2.6 billion in the first nine-month period of 2006, mounted to $3.3 billion in 2007. Thus, Turkey’s net energy imports rose from $18.6 billion to $19.6 billion, constituting 44.1 percent of the total foreign trade deficit within the same period.

First a hike in electricity rate, then natural gas

A bill introducing a rise in electricity rates, devised to compensate for a budgetary gap caused by the unpaid electricity bills of State Economic Enterprises (KİT), is awaiting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval. The bill brings a 10 percent rise for industrial consumption of electricity and a 15 percent rise for home consumption. The raise will be retroactive to Nov. 1 if Erdoğan signs the bill at the next Cabinet meeting. Another rate hike in energy is also to be applied to natural gas in January 2008. The new rate has not been determined, but it is expected to be between 5 percent and 8 percent above the current price, in line with previous hikes.