Page 12 - EurOil Week 06 2023

EurOil POLICY EurOil

Turkey wrestles with damaged energy

infrastructure after deadly earthquake

TURKEY INFRASTRUCTURE companies in south- pipelines is routed to Ceyhan and other ports in
eastern Turkey are racing to inspect and repair the area from where it is exported. Pumping at
OMV Petrom may owe damaged oil and gas pipelines and electricity Ceyhan, the main export terminal for Azeri and
the funds to the budget. transmission systems following massive destruc- Iraqi crude, was suspended while an inspection
tion and death caused by two huge earthquakes of the facilities was made and electricity supplies
and aftershocks on Monday and Tuesday. were cut off.
State-owned petroleum pipeline company Subsequently, crude flows through the pipe-
Botas reported that earthquakes centered in the lines were resumed and by the evening of Febru-
Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras districts had ary 7, it was reported that tanker loading from
impacted at least 10 cities. Turkish media said storage tanks had restarted at Ceyhan. How-
13 million people are affected. Rescue efforts are ever, a close evaluation of the facility’s status is
being hampered by damaged roads, bad weather expected to continue. Exports from Ceyhan
and poor communications. are been reported as averaging 1 million b/d.
The earthquake prompted Turkish President The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and
Recep Tayyip Erdogan to declare a three-month Iraqi government export on average more than
state of emergency in the affected areas. 400,000 b/d through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipe-
Botas stopped gas flows through the natural line to Ceyhan.
gas pipelines in the region while damage was Operations at the port of Dortyol, from
assessed and repairs made. It said that some where oil products, LPG and biofuels are
damage had been made to a gas transmission exported, were also suspended. Dortyol is
pipeline and that gas flows through it had been across Iskenderun Bay from Ceyhan and its
stopped. Electricity infrastructure was seriously operations also consist of bunkering, storage
damaged in many places and power supplies and blending.
were also halted to prevent further catastrophe Two massive earthquakes registering at 7.8
despite the urgent need for electricity by rescue and 7.5 on the Richter scale hit the provinces
teams. of Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras and Hatay on
Major oil pipeline systems run through Monday, February 6 and another large quake
that region of Turkey: the Baku-Tbilisi-Cey- hit the region on Tuesday altogether resulting
han (BTC) crude oil pipeline, Kirkuk-Ceyhan in thousands of deaths. The quake also caused
(Iraq-Turkey) and Batman-Dortyol pipelines. major destruction and loss of life in northern
Botas said that no damage was sustained to the Syria, which is still in a state of civil war, making
main pipelines, but assessments will continue to rescue efforts more difficult than they usually
be made. Most of the oil transported via these would be. ™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 06 08•February•2023