Turkey's leading oil producer and marketer, Marmarabirlik, is set to produce 2 million kilowatt hours of electricity from olive waste every year. Hidamet Asa, the chairman of Marmarabirlik, announced that the project, which is funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and was started as a research and development study two years ago, has been completed. According to Asa, treatment and energy production facilities, which have a budget of TL 3 million ($1.1 million), are built on a 2.5 acre area in the Marmarabirlik integrated plant. Asa also said that the plant successfully underwent tests a few days ago and is scheduled to be inaugurated officially in September. Underlining that it is a hard and costly task to refine the black juice of oil, Asa said that Marmarabirlik spent TL 500,000 a year disposing of olive waste and black juice. The plant has the capacity to produce 2 million kilowatt hours of electricity from 4,000 tons of olive waste a year. With the revenues it will obtain, the plant will pay for itself in three years. Stressing that all parts of the project complement each other, Asa said that the solid waste and biomass obtained from waste oil juice and brine will be converted to electric energy through a gasification system. The project will have 87 percent efficiency and will produce no waste. The project, which is a first of its kind in the world, has already begun attracting representatives of international brands. According to Asa, the company has agreed or on the verge of agreeing with some electricity companies to sell the electricity to be produced, thus the plant will earn a revenue of $300,000 a year.