Turkey is working on increasing the capacity of its natural gas storage units while filling existing storage, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez said Tuesday as the country aims to embrace the upcoming winter.

He said that the infrastructure work has been completed at the Silivri Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility, which will be the largest in its field in Europe.

The minister’s remarks came as he paid a visit to the facility, which is being operated by the Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ), where he inspected the works on the capacity increase.

"Currently, the Silivri Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility has a storage volume of 3.2 billion cubic meters (bcm). With the works we are doing, we will increase the capacity here to 4.6 bcm. We will also increase the regeneration capacity from 28 million cubic meters (mcm) to 75 mcm per day," the minister said.

Noting that the work continues at the Lake Tuz Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility as part of Turkey's efforts to increase its natural gas storage capacity, Dönmez said, "We currently have a storage area of 1.2 bcm there. The works there will be completed in about two years. Our capacity there will reach 5.4 bcm."

Dönmez said that they have filled the entire tank in the Lake Tuz facility, while some 82% of the Silivri storage was filled.

"We will complete the rest by the end of September," he said.

Dönmez went on to say that the Silivri facility will be provided the electricity it needs from wind energy with a soon-to-be-installed wind turbine with an installed capacity of 4.2 megawatts.

Noting that afforestation activities continue in the area within the scope of the project, Dönmez stated that approximately 400,000 trees such as olives and almonds will be planted.