Local currency era to start for Turkey in energy trade: Minister

Turkey will start a "new era" in its energy policy and will make payments to countries where large amounts of energy are concentrated in local currencies, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak has said.
"Turkey will take a big step in the coming period in terms of the use of local currencies ... Turkey will begin to make payments in local currencies with countries with which it has a large volume of energy trade," Albayrak said in a speech during budget talks in parliament.

He also claimed that the government would "not compromise" on environmental issues. 

"We are not giving up our environmental sensitiveness in focusing on green energy and local resources. But we have found some 7.5 billion tons of new coal reserves, especially in the provinces of Afyon, Eskişehir and Konya, as well as in the Thrace region," he said, while adding that the coal found will have a limited environmental effect. 

"The daily average particle volume per cubic meter of air is no more than 23 milligrams in our specifications, which is lower than the European criteria. The maximum sulfur threshold per cubic meter is 125 mg in their specifications but 33.7 mg in ours. The nitrogen threshold is 200 mg in theirs, but 134 mg in ours," said Albayrak.

He also stated that the government has recently introduced two key factors in the mining sector. 

"First of all, we established a geological data and drilling core databank in order to collect and preserve data obtained during mining exploration and production. This system will be online next summer. Second, we are set to start a system to record Turkey's mining resources and reserves, which will be dubbed UMREK. This system will likely be online in March 2017. We plan to complete a whole geophysical and...