Turkey to produce pollution-free shale gas

Turkish Minister of Environment and Urbanization Erdogan Bayraktar on Wednesday said his ministry was cooperating with the Ministry of Energy over a work on producing shale  gas without polluting theenvironment. Bayraktar made a speech regarding producing shale  gas in the Informal European Union Council ofEnvironment Ministers meeting in the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius. Indicating that Turkey has been getting ready to produce shale  gas as an alternative energy, Bayraktar said, they work on certain criteria in accordance with producing shale gas without pollutingenvironment. Reminding that Turkey is an energy dependent country,  Bayraktar said there were shalegas reserves in the Southeastern Anatolia region and Thrace region and added that there was more potential of shale gas reserves in other parts of Turkey. Bayraktar said "there are 14 shale gas basins in the world" but the reserves are not limited to those basins. Pointing that shale  gas production would resolve Turkey'senergy deficit problem, Bayraktar said, "we think it would be an important alternative for sustainable growth."