Turkey as the centre of the energy market and related policies

Energy is an input that plays a significant role in the production, development and change of countries and societies. This research about energy aims to contribute to the understanding of the Turkish market in the ever increasing importance of global energy trading and to contribute to its analysis. Petroleum, natural gas and coal reserves of Turkey, which are its fossil resources, fail to meet the consumption of the country and thus, dependence on foreign energy sources has increased. Though the alternative energy sources of geothermal, biomass, solar, wind and hydroelectric energies have high potentials of energy, their share in energy generation is small. With regards to the nuclear energy among the energy sources Turkey could benefit from, completion of Sinop and Akkuyu plants will significantly decrease Turkey's dependence on foreign energy sources. Shale gas, hydrogen energy and marine based energies among the potential energy sources have high potentials. There are on-going studies for the efficient future use of these energy sources. 72.7% of the known petroleum reserves and 71.8% of the known natural gas reserves of the world are available around Turkey. Considering the investments on the energy regions around Turkey, the investments of China and Russia particularly, and the investment of the USA, EU and Israeli companies take attention. Looking at the association structure and routes of the energy transmission lines, one can see that Russia, the USA, EU and China intend to keep the energy regions under their control. The role Turkey has undertaken as a distributor among the supply and demand centers seems to be very significant for the global energy markets. This position of Turkey in global energy trading together with the international projects could decrease its dependency on foreign energy sources.