Turkey to produce pollution-free shale gas

Speaking at a meeting of the Informal European Union Council of Environment Ministers in Lithuania, Environment and Urbanization Minister 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. Stating that Turkey has been getting ready to produce shale gas as an alternative energy, Bayraktar said that they worked on certain criteria in accordance with producing shale gas without polluting the environment. Bayraktar also said that there were shale gas reserves in the Southeastern Anatolia region and Thrace region, as well as more potential of shale gas reserves in other parts of Turkey. Underlining that there are 14 shale gas basins in the world, but the reserves are not limited to those basins, Bayraktar said that the shale gas production would resolve Turkey's energy deficit problem and become an important alternative for sustainable growth.