Turkey Financial News

Gaz de France submitted the highest bid of $232 million in a tender for the privatisation of the İzmit gas distribution company (Izgaz).

Under the tender, the whole of the gas distribution firm in northwestern Turkey will be sold off in a block sale. In the open auction session broadcast live by CNBC-e, local Zorlu Enerji withdrew from the tender. The energy regulator EPDK and the competition board have to approve the tender before the distribution network is taken over by the private sector. (more…)

The Turkish State Railways (TCDD) has entered a new era in the country’s 100-year-old railway system by proceeding with a project to lay a second track next to the country’s current one-way railroad as part of efforts to retrofit the system.

The Ministry of Transportation decided to upgrade the country’s railway system, a project that has been postponed for many years, after observing the success of double lane highways in the country, which were constructed after the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power in 2002. All new railways to be constructed will have two sets of tracks, as is the case with the Ankara-İstanbul and Ankara-Konya high-speed train tracks. The project also involves improving the current railway network by constructing a second railway track alongside current tracks. The TCDD plans to construct a second track on the 193-kilometer-long Ankara-Kayseri, Kayseri-Divriği, Kayseri-Ulukışla-Yenice and Konya-Karaman-Ulukışla tracks, which form the core of the freight business in Turkey. The project is expected to be completed in 10 years in three phases. (more…)

Dogan Yayin Holding, Turkey’s biggest media group, bid for the rights to run the sports-betting game, Iddaa, together with Italy’s Lottomatica Videolot Gestione SpA and SNAI SpA, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Dogan will have a 50 percent stake in the consortium, while its Italian partners, Lottomatica Videolat SpA and SNAI SpA, will hold 47 percent and 3 percent of shares respectively, the statement made to the Istanbul Stock Exchange said. (more…)

The Public Waterworks Administration’s (DSİ) Region Four administration will open a project bid for the Mavi Tünel (Blue Tunnel) project, expected to provide the Konya Plain with 414 million cubic meters of water annually, in August. The project is expected to cost YTL 750 million.

Speaking with the Anatolia news agency, DSİ Region Four Deputy General Manager Mevlüt Pınarkara said the Blue Tunnel project, the most important leg of the Konya Plains Project (KOP), is proceeding at a quick pace. A total of 414 million cubic meters of water in the Göksü Basin, which empties into the Mediterranean, will be redirected to the Konya Basin with the help of the Blue Tunnel project, facilitating the irrigation of land in the region and reducing pressure on groundwater in the Konya Basin. (more…)

The number of the companies and consortiums seeking to take part in Turkey’s first nuclear power plant project has increased to eight, with the Chinese Nuclear Power Components Co. and Dutch Unit Investment N.V. purchasing bid specifications.

Turkish Electricity Trading and Contracting Company (TETAŞ) had initiated a tender for the construction and operation of a nuclear power plant in the Akkuyu district of Mersin province in March. TETAŞ General Manager Hacı Duran Gökkaya said on Thursday he was expecting interest in the project to grow in the coming months. (more…)

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Güler has pledged that there will be no postponements in the scheduled tenders for energy generation projects, particularly in the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

The government is aiming to conclude tenders for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants in the provinces of Akkuyu and Sinop by the end of 2008. However, there had been some question as to whether the tenders would be rescheduled to dates in 2009. In response to these questions, the minister noted, “All energy privatizations will be held on the previously announced dates.” (more…)

The city of İzmit, 110 kilometers southeast of Istanbul, will hold an auction for its natural-gas distribution network on Aug. 14, a month later than originally planned.

Potential buyers must reveal technical details on bids for İzmit Dogalgaz Dağıtım, or İZGAZ, by Aug. 7 and make initial offers by the day of the auction, the municipality said in an advertisement published in Turkish newspapers Friday.

İzgaz had originally set a bid deadline of July 17. (more…)

Turkey’s first auction of power grids lured two foreign utilities, compared with at least eight that planned to participate in 2006, as a legal challenge to oust the prime minister and an electricity-price cap deter bidders.

When Turkey announced the auction of power lines that serve Ankara and the industrial Sakarya region near Istanbul two years ago, more than 30 Turkish and foreign companies sought details, among them E.ON, Germany’s biggest utility, and Italy’s Enel. Now, Austria’s Verbund and Prague-based CEZ are the only international companies remaining among the five bidders for each grid, according to the state asset-sales agency. (more…)