The Turkish Oil Refining Sector Privatised.

The downstream sector in Turkey has gone through major changes, with the government having privatised state-owned enterprises involved oil refining and distribution of petroleum products. The refining sector is moving into a more dynamic era, after years of being caught up in the uncertainty over

The economic situation in Turkey has improved considerably since 2002. This is mainly thanks to economic reforms and a stable government since November 2002, when the Islamist AK Party (AKP) won parliamentary elections and secured a majority of the seats in the national assembly. The AKP on July 22, 2007, won even a bigger majority in parliamentary elections. But the government now is facing the possibility of a ban on the AKP by the Constitutional Court on grounds that it is not secular in line with the Turkey's Kemalist ideology (see who's who in Review No. 20).

The two state-founded companies involved in the downstream sector in Turkey are the refiner Turkiye Petrol Rafineleri A.S (Tupras) and the fuel retailer Turk Petrol Ofisi A.S. (POAS). Together with a deregulation of fuel pricing (see the energy base in down17TurkEnrBaseApr21-08), their privatisation has helped create the right environment to revive plans for new refineries. At least four refining projects are being proposed which could raise this sector's capacity from less than 620,000 b/d to 1.52m b/d in the coming years.