CAPITAL: Ankara

MONETARY UNIT: Lira

REFINING CAPACITY: 708,255 b/cd

OIL PRODUCTION: 68,000 b/d

OIL RESERVES: 331 million bbl

GAS RESERVES: 309 bcf

Turkey agreed to revise some of the navigation restrictions and safety rules for tanker traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits.

Russia, Greece, and other Black Sea nations had complained that the restrictions were hampering tanker traffic and creating shipping bottlenecks.

Turkey tightened the rules following a March 1994 collision between a Greek Cypriot tanker and a freighter that kept the straits closed for several days. Among other things, the rules restricted large tankers to transit during daylight.

Turkey said there had been at least 170 tanker accidents in the straits during the past decade.

In upstream action, Chevron, Texaco, and ARCO were negotiating with state oil company TPAO to improve production at an oil field in the southeastern province of Batman.

Batiraman oil field, believed to be the biggest in Turkey, was only producing about 11,000 b/d of heavy oil.

Unocal and Koc Holding agreed to create Turkey`s first private energy distribution and marketing company, a natural gas marketing venture.

The firm will buy, market, and move gas to end-users in Turkey and seek opportunities to build gas pipelines.

Pipelines

Turkey signed a $13.5 billion deal with Gazprom to increase its imports of Russian gas to 30 billion cu m/year by 2010 from 3 billion cu m/year.

Turkey imports Russian gas via an 8 billion cu m/year pipeline through the Balkans. Capacity will be expanded to 14 billion cu m/year.

Gazprom and Turkey`s government also agreed to build a 1,160-km pipeline through eastern Turkey, with capacity to import 16 billion cu m/year.

Petergaz, a joint venture of Russia`s Gazprom and Heerema Group of companies, Geneva, will manage the 400-km offshore section of a planned gas pipeline across the Black Sea from Djubga, Russia, to Samsun, Turkey.

The 1.5 bcfd pipeline, slated for completion in 2000, will pass through water 2,100 m deep.

Turkey and Ukraine agreed to build a $600 million pipeline to carry Middle East oil from the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea.

The 500-mile, 500,000 b/d capacity pipeline will extend from Turkey`s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan to the Ukraine`s Black Sea port of Samsun, with crude to be used primarily to meet Ukraine demand.

Ceyhan was the terminus of another pipeline from Iraq`s oil fields near Kirkuk. Ukraine now depends on oil from Russia and was seeking to secure oil supplies from the Middle East.

Turkey`s state pipeline firm Botas let a $118 million contract to a group of 14 Turkish companies to lay a 188-mile section of a natural gas pipeline linking Iran with Turkey.

The two nations last year signed a $23 billion, 23-year gas supply contract calling for a pipeline from Tabriz to Ankara.

Iran will lay a 169-mile pipeline from Tabriz to the Turkish border, while Turkey will start its segment between Erzurum and Dogubeyazit near Iran`s border.

The full system will have initial capacity of 288 MMcfd at expected completion in 1998, expandable to about 960 MMcfd.

Energy ministers of Iraq and Turkey agreed to hold talks over export of 1 bcfd of gas by pipeline from northeastern Iraq to Turkey as part of a $2 billion project.

GAS would be moved to Turkey`s Anatolia region through a 1,380-km pipeline with two gas compressor stations. Total cost of field development and pipeline construction was estimated at $2 billion.