ISTANBUL, Apr 03, 2010 -- Xinhua


The world's first floating power vessel built by Turkey started its first journey to Iraq in a ceremony held here on Saturday.

The ceremony was attended by Turkish Energy & Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz and Iraqi Electricity Minister Karim Wahid al-Hasan.

The semi-official Anatolia news agency reported that the 144- MegaWatt power ship built by Turkey's Karadeniz Holding will export electricity it generated to Iraq.

The Turkish minister said: "energy will be the trigger of peace in the region, not wars. This is what this ship will do."

Yildiz said he hoped the power ship would contribute to the improvement of prosperity of the Iraqi people, as well as the normalization process in the country.

For his part, Dogan Karadeniz, member of the executive board of the Karadeniz Holding, said that they had been carrying out several other projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East countries.

"Currently, we have four ships with a total energy capacity of 675 megawatt. Their value is more than 500 million U.S. dollars. Three of them were built in Istanbul's Tuzla Shipyard while the fourth one was built in Singapore."

"We are planning to build three more ships with a capacity of 450 megawatt," he added.

The "Power of Friendship Project" developed and carried out by the Karadeniz Energy Group aims at meeting electricity requirement of countries with energy ships.

Under the project, more than 10 countries in the Middle East, northern Africa and southern Asia will be provided with 2010 megawatt of electricity with ten different ships by the end of 2010.

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