Turkey to produce pollution-free shale gas

Turkish Minister of Environment and Urbanization Erdogan Bayraktar on Wednesday said his ministry was cooperating with the Ministry of Energy over a work on producing shale gas without polluting the environment. Bayraktar made a speech regarding producing shale gas in the Informal European Union Council of Environment Ministers meeting in the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius. Indicating that Turkey has been getting ready to produce shale gas as an alternative energy, Bayraktar said, they work on certain criteria in accordance with producing shale gas without polluting environment. Reminding that Turkey is an energy dependent country, Bayraktar said there were shale gas reserves in the Southeastern Anatolia region and Thrace region and added that there was more potential of shale gas reserves in other parts of Turkey. Bayraktar said "there are 14 shale gas basins in the world" but the reserves are not limited to those basins. Pointing that shale gas production would resolve Turkey's energy deficit problem, Bayraktar said, "we think it would be an important alternative for sustainable growth."