Bulgaria is set to increase electricity supplies by 80 percent this year to Turkey, where a drought is cutting into hydro-electrical power production, Turkish energy minister Cumhur Ersumer said here Thursday.
Turkey, which consumes 120 billion kilowatt hours per year, looked set to buy six billion kWh from Bulgaria this year compared with 3.3 billion kWh last year, he said.
Turkey's hydro-electric generators are failing to produce enough power due to the drought. In October, three key dams in its southeastern region reached their lowest levels in 10 years, forcing power cutbacks.
Construction of a high tension power line would be completed in September to enhance Bulgaria's delivery capabilities, said the Bulgarian minister for construction, Yevgeni Chachev.
Ersumer was in Bulgaria with Turkish President Necdet Sezer, who travelled to the southern city of Plovdiv for a summit with Bulgarian and Romanian leaders on infrastructure projects and the fight against crime in the Balkans.—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse 2001.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
