45th SBF Encounter was held online on 21th January 2020, due to the pandemic conditions. The title of the meeting was Hydrocarbon Searchs of Turkey and New Energy Balances.
The meeting started with the speech of AYBU rector Prof. Dr. İbrahim Aydınlı. He mentioned the book of Frederick Starr named “Lost Enlightenment” and hihglighted that energy culture is a vital part of our civilization, from past to present.
Moderator of the meeting, Head of Economics Department, Prof. Dr. Erdal Tanas Karagöl expressed that Turkey's geographical position is a crossroad of energy supply and demand. In addition to the geographical importance, it is said that the main reason of economical and social problems faced by Turkey is energy. To eliminate those problems, Turkey has attempts to reduce the energy dependence and searchs for natural gas and hydrocarbon, as a keypoint of this aim.
Vice Minister of Energy and Natural Sources Ministry Dr. Alparslan Bayraktar as the invited speaker of the meeting, in his speech, mentioned the investents being done on energy supply and the necessities of those investments, from past to present. He said that Turkey is a country of which energy demand is constantly increasing. That is why there is an important reform proccess about energy policies since the beginning of 2000s. With this point of view, the most important aims of Turkey are, providing energy supply security, and reducing energy dependency to foreign countries. In 2016, a new aim is added to energy policies with declaration of National Energy and Mining Policy. This aim is putting forward predictable markets.
He addressed that 30% of our Turkey’s energy demand will be met by starting usage of the latest explorations of Turkish filo. At the of his speech, Bayraktar expressed that Paris Agreement in 2015 creates a new economic model and Turkey will have an important role in energy markets.
