Turkey eyes natural gas exploration in Yemen

By Oğuzhan Özsoy 

ANKARA - Turkey desires natural gas exploration in Yemen, Taner Yildiz, Turkey's energy minister, has said during a joint press conference with Saleh Samea, Yemen’s electricity minister Thursday.

Turkey also wants to construct electricity power plants in Yemen as their electricity infrastructure is outdated and insufficient to meet the country's needs.

The exclusive negotiations between Turkey and Yemen on building power plants started back in 2013.

"We are trying to prepare a memorandum of understanding on energy for tomorrow which will handle energy cooperation between the two countries," Yildiz added.

"I believe that the two countries will win from this energy cooperation."

Yildiz also stated that Turkey aims to increase the number of countries from which it imports natural gas to nine and hopes Yemen will be one of these countries. 

Turkey currently imports natural gas from five different countries, including Iran and Russia.

Furthermore, Samea said that Yemen "could cooperate with Turkey on not just on energy, but also education," adding that "We will present Turkey's natural gas exploration offer to our parliament." 

Data from the World Bank indicated that, as recently as 2010, only 40 percent of Yemen's population had access to electricity.