Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority, EMRA, fined energy companies approx. 370.8 million Turkish liras (about $125 million) in 2015, according to official data from the energy watchdog on Tuesday.
With 292 million Turkish liras ($98 million), the oil sector was the largest sector to be given fines with 748 separate cases, the data shows.
EMRA fined oil companies for purchasing diesel from unlicensed suppliers and selling sub-standard diesel, which did not contain the adequate level of national marker that indicates the prescribed quality assurance.
The liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, sector was given 141 fines in the sum of 40.1 million Turkish liras ($13.5 million).
In the electricity sector, 53 companies were fined a total of 37 million Turkish liras ($12.5 million).
With 439,582 Turkish liras ($148,453), the natural gas sector received the least amount of fines.
EMRA imposed fines of around 639 million Turkish liras (about $234 million) in 2014, and 2 billion 366 million in 2013 to energy companies. The total amount of fines in the last three years reached 3.3 billion Turkish Liras ($1.1 billion)
Mustafa Yilmaz, head of Turkish EMRA, told the Anadolu Agency that they regard fines as the ultimate remedy to ensure quality service and to efficiently regulate the market.
"We want to regulate the Turkish energy market by bringing the fines down to rock bottom," Yilmaz said.
According to Yilmaz, mistakes are inevitable with the quantity of license holders involved. There are 30 thousand license holders in the Turkish energy market in various sectors such as oil, electricity, natural gas and LPG.
"However, we cannot excuse the mistakes especially the ones that directly relate to consumers," Yilmaz added.
(Anadolu Agency)
