Turkey's energy diversification strategy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Author: Uslu, Safa
• Position: Report

Currently, Turkey's growing economy compels the private sector to find new energy resources. As an energy dependent country, Turkey has to generate enough electricity and find enough hydrocarbons to meet its economic growth. Sub-Saharan Africa is thus one of the targeted regions for Turkey's foreign policymakers and energy strategists alike, as Turkey seeks to find new resources by expanding its impact in new regions. At the same time, Turkey aims to have these countries' support in multilateral institutions.

Turkey's relations with Sub-Saharan African can be separated in two periods after the AK Party came to power. The first period began in 2005 with the official announcement of 'Africa Year" in Turkey. At this time, Turkey focused on implementing humanitarian aid to the continent through institutions such as TIKA (the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency) and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Another significant development during this period was that the number of Turkish Airlines flights to Africa, and Turkish embassies on the continent boomed, which facilitated logistical services for business. The second period saw Turkey begin to develop an energy strategy established on the basis of mutual benefit. By 2010, Turkey had started to develop bilateral energy relations by signing Memorandums of Understanding with the Sub-Saharan African countries. During this period, Turkish business people launched relations with Sub-Saharan countries in coherence with the Government-to-Government relations. Despite this progress, however, there are still not enough energy relations between Turkey and Africa's Sub-Saharan countries. Businesses and the government anticipate more coherent and sustainable energy relations in what is expected to characterize the third period, by 2023.

Introduction

Energy is a phenomenon that impacts not only individuals but also the foreign policy making process. In terms of the geopolitics of Turkey, energy is always a dilemma, not only due to the delicate task of balancing of energy supply security with other concerns, but also for energy's role in driving foreign policy in the direction of forming coherent bilateral relations with neighbours.

The election of the one party government of the Justice and Development (AK) Party in 2002 changed the mind-set behind Turkey's foreign policymaking process. In the midst of the political stability and economic growth that followed the AK Party's election, Turkey's new foreign policy addressed the need not only to adapt Turkey to the post millennium order, but also to secure Turkey's energy supply. In the post millennium period, national and trans-national actors are becoming more influential. Joseph Nye, pioneer of the theory of "soft power," argues that the "horizontal and vertical dimensions of the foreign policy making process change its characteristics". (1) To implement and reflect the power in the society, statecraft necessitates a greater use of the soft instruments of trans-national actors such as social media and multilateral institutions. (2) In this regard, the major changes in Turkish foreign policymaking can be sequenced as follows:

First and foremost, whilst conventional Turkish foreign policy was security-oriented, the AK Party has preferred to set a new foreign policy focused on trade as NGOs, think-tanks, and business initiatives have been welcomed to engage in the policymaking process. (3) This shift has resulted in a multidimensional foreign policy understanding that is being implemented in the foreign policy making process for the first time since Turgut Ozal's presidency.

Secondly, the interconnection between economic growth and political stability, along with Turkey's aims to attain a high level of democracy, has triggered foreign investment in Turkey. In fact, to spur economic development, the government has focused on attracting foreign direct investment by opening new markets. In particular, the privatisation of Turkey's formerly state-owned companies was one of the most effective ways to attract foreign investors to the country. To illustrate this, while Turkey's privatisation revenue was a mere $8 billion between 1986 and 2003, since 2004 this number has reached $56 billion. (4) While the domestic economy and politics were going well, the growing economy, political successes leading toward EU negotiations, and the establishment of good ties with the U.S. created positive press for Turkey internationally, especially in the regions that have been connected with Turkey historically, such as the Balkans, the Middle East, Caucasia, Europe and Africa.

Thirdly, the AK Party has incorporated a number of game-changing principles into its foreign policy that work in harmony with its energy strategy, such as interdependence, zero problems with neighbours, and soft power. Fourthly, Turkey has focused on reaching new regions by creating and relying more on soft power and interdependence with the counterparts. (5) For instance, interdependence between Turkey and Middle Eastern countries were implemented successfully to the bilateral relations with the regional countries for a decade. Whilst these proactive strategies transformed foreign policy, Turkey's economic growth created a strong demand for energy. Therefore, it can be said that one of the major impulses behind changing Turkey's foreign policy was to reach new energy resources in order to meet increasing domestic demand. Being an energy dependent country has forced the government to find new hydrocarbon and mineral resources; as it does so, Turkish business people are discovering new investment infrastructures.

This article examines and discusses how economic growth has forced Turkey to open new geographies, not only for finding fossil fuel, but also as investment opportunities for Turkish business. In order to cover the issue, Turkey's Sub-Saharan Africa Strategic Partnership is analysed.

In this regard, firstly, Turkey's energy needs are assessed and secondly, there is a discussion of how African energy resources could be helpful for Turkey. Thirdly, the importance of soft power in reaching the Sub-Saharan African countries' (SSA) hydrocarbons resources and minerals is explained. Fourthly, the Africa Strategic Partnership and Turkey's energy relations with SSA countries are analysed chronologically.

Turkey's Growing Energy Gap

Turkey's lack of natural gas and oil reserves has always made energy security a challenge. A heavy reliance on fossil fuels in Turkey's power sector has made economic growth fragile, as it has resulted in significant budget deficits for many years. At the same time, economic growth and energy growth remain strongly correlated. Energy growth statistics illustrate the rise of Turkey s economy in the last decade. (6) As an illustration, power installed capacity has doubled; comparing the period of 1923, the year the Turkish Republic was established, and the new millennium, what was less than 30.000 MW increased to 70.000 MW in 2015. (7) The numbers show that during the last decade installed capacity has been added at the rate of at least 5000 MW annually. The Ministry of Energy expects that this number will reach 120.000 MW by 2023. In 2014 alone, 7000 MW were added to the installed capacity. (8)

Economic growth drives not only energy demand, but also the consumption of oil products and natural gas resources. In terms of fossil fuel, Turkey has no domestic capacity to meet her economy's needs. Thus a growth in Turkey s energy imports as a proportion of total energy consumption has contributed significantly to the budget deficit. For instance, in 2011, Turkey's fossil fuel imports accounted for $54.1 billion out of a $77.1 billion budget deficit, which equals 70.2 percent. (9) The main reason behind the energy deficit is the fact that Turkey imports significant amounts of oil and natural gas. Turkish Petroleum (TP), the government owned biggest oil firm, is capable only of producing roughly 100.000 barrels/day out of 800.000 barrels/day oil products consumption. (10) In the same way, the production of natural gas only covers 1 percent of the consumption of natural gas, which was 48 billion cubic meters (BCM) in 2014. (11) In other words, 99 percent of the total consumption is...