Tüpraş Announces Investments Totaling USD 101 Million

Tüpraş Announces Total Investment of USD 101 Million Tüpraş, which unveiled its Strategic Transformation Plan in 2021 with the motto "Our Energy for the Future" and the goal of producing the energy of tomorrow for a sustainable Turkey, completed the first year of its transformation journey. The company announced it will reduce emissions by 27 percent by 2030 and transform into a carbon-neutral energy company by 2050. With approximately half directed toward sustainability targets, Tüpraş aims to invest USD 200 million by the end of 2022. Tüpraş General Manager İbrahim Yelmenoğlu, noting that the company continues to meet Turkey's national fuel needs without interruption, said that with the Strategic Transformation Plan announced one year ago, they are rapidly implementing investments that will make significant contributions to Turkey's carbon commitments. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference held recently in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Yelmenoğlu drew attention to the importance of the conference for a world still recovering from pandemic effects and dealing with geopolitical tensions. He stated: "Combating climate change, which is the main agenda item of the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in which we participate, becomes increasingly important with each passing day. As Tüpraş, we continue to move forward with steady steps through our Strategic Transformation Plan, powered by all our energy to fulfill our responsibilities, with the strength of national and international collaborations. Within the scope of our goal to become a carbon-neutral energy company by 2050, we are focusing on increasing our energy efficiency in the refining sector and on decarbonization projects. At the same time, leveraging our sector experience, we are investing in new business areas we are focusing on—green hydrogen, zero-carbon electricity, and biofuel production—and we plan to maintain our current leading position in the low-carbon energy markets of the future," he said. As they progress toward their Strategic Transformation Plan targets, Yelmenoğlu stated they aim to make a total investment of USD 200 million in 2022, approximately half of which will be directed toward sustainability investments. He said: "We have implemented various investments, most notably the acquisition of Entek shares, which represents a significant step in zero-carbon electricity generation. These include signing a license agreement with Honeywell UOP for sustainable aviation fuel production, membership in Hydrogen Europe, the leading stakeholder organization in the European hydrogen market, participation in the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and the establishment of Tüpraş Energy Ventures A.Ş."

Tüpraş Strategic Transformation: Key Highlights of One Year

Recalling that as a result of successful developments Tüpraş is the only Turkish company to appear on Bloomberg's 2022 "50 Companies to Watch" list, General Manager İbrahim Yelmenoğlu said, "While continuing to strengthen our position as Turkey's largest industrial company, we take pride in leading our country's clean energy transition." He shared the following information about the investments and work carried out during the one-year period: "Within the scope of the license agreement we signed with Honeywell UOP, a leading global technology company, for the use of Ecofining™ technology in sustainable aviation fuel production, we will continue our efforts in the biofuel business area as part of our strategic transformation plan at the facility we plan to establish. We have begun work at our Izmir refinery. We are also continuing collaboration discussions to secure the bio-based waste raw materials we need. We have also made a significant investment in the 'Zero-Carbon Electricity' sector, one of the four strategic business units our company will focus on in the future as part of our transformation plan. We made an important move with the acquisition of Entek shares by Tüpraş. Entek, a subsidiary of Koç Holding and Aygaz, operates eight hydroelectric, one wind, and one natural gas combined-cycle power plants with a total capacity of 442 MW. This partnership contributes significantly to our company's production portfolio in its strategic transformation journey while aiming to accelerate our country's clean energy future. With Entek joining Tüpraş, we are making important progress toward reaching our zero-carbon installed capacity targets of 1 GW by 2030 and 2.5 GW by 2035. With Entek bringing its accumulated experience and expertise in renewable energy and highly competent human resources to the Tüpraş family, significant synergy has begun to form not only in our zero-carbon electricity generation but also in the implementation of our strategic transformation plan. Last week, Entek, under the scope of the Electricity Market Storage Activities Regulation published by the regulator, committed to the regulator to establish a storage facility and submitted a preliminary license application for additional capacity of 1,004.5 MW across 15 projects, comprising 150 MW of solar and 854.5 MW of wind capacity in addition to existing capacity. If the applications are evaluated favorably, we will be entitled to obtain preliminary licenses. Our company is moving forward strongly in achieving its goal of becoming an important player in tomorrow's energy world by adding storage facilities to its strong renewable growth targets. Meanwhile, our investments in zero-carbon electricity generation at our refinery sites continue. In this context, we signed the construction contract for a 12.6 MW Solar Power Plant to be commissioned at Kırıkkale Refinery in June 2023, and completed our application for an additional 54.4 MW capacity. On the other hand, in September 2022, we established Tüpraş Energy Ventures A.Ş. 'Tüpraş Ventures' as a 100% Tüpraş subsidiary with the aim of investing in domestic and international technology startups, particularly in priority areas such as bio-based products, green hydrogen, zero-carbon electricity, carbon management, and related subsectors, as well as smart information technologies, green energy, energy efficiency, environment and recycling, waste management, and robotic solution technologies. Our efforts continue uninterrupted on our first target in the green hydrogen sector, which is to establish a demonstration facility by 2025. Investments in producing high-value-added new products while also improving energy efficiency are proceeding at full speed. Considering these actions, we have accomplished substantial and tangible business moves in a short time."

"We are transforming for a sustainable world"

Yelmenoğlu stated, "We have begun sharing many new data on sustainability with the public. We place great importance on transparency and open information sharing, and we aim to increase this further. As a result of our 2021 sustainability efforts, we achieved an average improvement of 22 percent in our assessment scores in indices such as FTSE4Good, MSCI ESG Rating, BIST SE (Refinitiv), Sustainalytics, Vigeo Eiris, and Bloomberg GEI. Furthermore, in 2022, we took our place among global companies supporting the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and we have the opportunity to transparently convey comprehensive recommendations regarding more effective and conscious management of climate risks. Drawing strength from our solid heritage of over 60 years, on the journey we started by saying 'Our Energy for the Future,' we are transforming to produce the energy of tomorrow, and we are changing for a sustainable world," he said. Noting that they will continue to take strong steps in the "Sustainable Refining" sector, an important heading in the 2050 Carbon Neutral journey, Yelmenoğlu said, "We are making every effort to diversify our portfolio."

"We are preparing for our 2030 vision with our Future Fit Human Resources project"

Yelmenoğlu said: "With our Human Resources project 'Future Fit,' we are taking a more holistic view of our organization, identifying new roles and competencies we will need in the future, and deploying new skills training programs to prepare our colleagues for these roles. We can say that our Future Fit project is a very important beginning for the cultural transformation that supports our 2030 goal of 'A Sustainable, Competitive, and Future-Ready Tüpraş' outlined in our Strategic Transformation Plan. Additionally, we view our project as a dynamic work agenda that carries us into the future through continuous improvement initiatives and the platform structures that feed it. We are also conducting work on entrepreneurship, innovation, open innovation, and startup integration for today's and tomorrow's business. At the same time, we continue to develop collaborations by experiencing innovative technologies of domestic and foreign ventures at our refineries," he said.

"Starting from 2022, we aim for one out of every two new hires to be women"

Emphasizing that while implementing transformation for a sustainable world and the energy of the future, they are focused not only on economic growth but on creating social impact, Yelmenoğlu said, "We have embarked on a path saying 'Our Energy for Equality Never Ends,' and in this direction, we keep an inclusive, fair, human rights-respecting, and safe work environment at the center of all our processes." As a company that believes professions have no gender, with a pioneering practice in our sector, we employ women technicians and operators in the field. Three years ago, women operators and technicians joined our refinery sites in Batman (for the first time), İzmit, Kırıkkale, and İzmir. Women engineers have always been present at our refinery, but the addition of shift-working women colleagues in the field became a pioneering and exemplary practice for both our sector and our company. We feel great joy and pride in taking this bold step for a business area thought to be male-dominated. Starting from 2022, we aim for one out of every two new hires to be women. On the other hand, women colleagues make up 53 percent of our talent pool. Today, we aim to increase the share of women employees, currently at 24 percent in Engineering, R&D, Innovation, Service Design, and Information Technology sectors, to 40 percent within 5 years. With another pioneering initiative, we established a Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee at our company last year and published our DEI Policy. Our committee continues its work to strengthen and expand our activities in this area. We are pleased to note that with all these efforts, we are included in Bloomberg's Gender Equality Index," he said. Noting that they have developed the Women in Technology and Innovation Program to contribute to Koç Holding's commitments under the United Nations Women Generational Equality Forum's global leadership, Yelmenoğlu stated they have committed to reaching a total of 100,000 female students—90,000 from middle school and 10,000 from university—over 5 years through various training projects they will conduct. Through the Tüpraş Women in Technology and Innovation Program, the company aims to reveal the work potential of girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields and facilitate their access to the technology and innovation ecosystem. The company launched the program's first phase in collaboration with Batman University through "Innovation and Women Entrepreneurship Training for Young Minds." The Training Program aims to spread entrepreneurship culture in universities and facilitate access for young people, particularly girls, to the technology and innovation ecosystem. In the following years, Tüpraş aims to expand the program through collaborations with universities in Kocaeli, Kırıkkale, Istanbul, and İzmir, the cities where it operates.