4 September 2013
Turkey is holding negotiations with China and South Korea to implement a project to build $12bn worth of power plants in the country, following a pull out of investment by Abu Dhabi firm TAQA.
Construction was due to begin in mid-2013, but the deal was put on hold after TAQA decided to defer investment in the project citing "other spending priorities".
At least one analyst had blamed Abu Dhabi’s pull-out on differences between Turkey and the UAE over the removal from power of Mohamed Morsi.
Reported in Sabah newspaper, Turkey’s energy and natural resources minister, Taner Yıldız, said that immediately after the UAE rejected the construction of the thermal power plants, Turkey started work on a back-up plan.
Construction of the plants would take advantage of the lignite coal reserves in the Afsin-Elbistan and could provide up to 8,000MW of power to southeast Turkey.
Source: Trend
