Turkey's聽fuel oil market has been unaffected by lower oil prices,聽according to head of petroleum department of Turkish energy market watchdog on Friday.
"Fallen oil prices didn鈥檛 make a significant change on the fuel oil market. At聽the end of 2013, Turkey had 77 distribution companies for fuel oil, this number is聽now聽80,"聽Abdullah Ince told the press in Istanbul, adding聽this amount would have increased significantly if oil prices had affected the market as anticipated.
"Generally speaking, there is no significant decrease or increase in this sector. In the short-term, we can say聽there has been聽no change,"聽Ince said.
At the end of 2013, Turkey had 12,636 fueling stations, but no negative impact was seen in the聽March 2015 figure when it聽rose to聽12,948.
Energy Market Regulatory Authority, EMRA, said in a press release in February聽in order to regulate gasoline and diesel oil pricing, "ceiling prices" would be applied to protect consumers and to regulate profit margins of fuel distributors and dealers in Turkey.
EMRA will monitor the compliance of the new ceiling price rule with a new methodology for profit margins in accordance with European market pricing. The new methodology came into effect on Nov. 7, 2014.
By Murat Temizer
Anadolu Agency