After scheduling an appointment to visit the newspaper with Mr. İbrahim Erdemoğlu, the Chairman of Erdemoğlu Holding, I reviewed my articles about the group and its affiliated companies, in particular SASA.

At the beginning of December last year, I visited SASA facilities in Adana and Merinos in Gaziantep with a group of my colleagues at the invitation of İbrahim Erdemoğlu, and I set the title as follows:

Investment in SASA has reached $4 billion, making it the largest except India and China...

Mr. Erdemoğlu summarized the steps taken to renew SASA's technology, which he acquired in 2015 for a total value of $200 million, as follows:

We continued our production and investments step by step at SASA. By 2021, our investment reached $1.5 billion.

In the last 3 years, we have built additional facilities. We established a PTA facility for 1.7 billion dollars and a POY facility for 800 million dollars. The POY facility is now operational. The investment at the PTA facility has been completed, and production will start once the technical deficiencies are addressed.

Since 2015, our investment in the land in Adana for SASA has reached 4 billion dollars. If we had continued production with the obsolete machines at SASA, we would have gone bankrupt 10 times by now. We have added a 75% increase in value to SASA.

We asked Mr. İbrahim Erdemoğlu, whom we interviewed with in the newspaper alongside Hakan Güldağ, about the current situation at SASA, and he explained:

- We have closed 90% of the old facilities at SASA. Only 10% is operational. The new facilities are 100% operational. The annual target for PTA production was 1.5 million tons. It will rise to 1 million 750 thousand tons, which means that the facility will operate at 110% capacity.
He put forward the impact of new investments and SASA's changing technology in terms of import substitution:

- Production at SASA will reduce our country's national deficit by 1.5 billion dollars. In addition, we have the chance to produce at the lowest cost in the world.

When we talked about technology renewal at SASA, he underlined the following points about the structure of the industry in Turkey:

- Turkey should move from labor-intensive jobs to more value-added, medium and high technology-based productions. It should achieve this transformation step by step.

Mr. Erdemoğlu took SASA, which he acquired from Sabancı Holding 10 years ago for a total value of 200 million dollars, to a very different level with an investment of 4 billion dollars.

The rising technology and production bar has raised SASA to the top of the world "except China and India"...

An investment of 25 billion dollars awaits the 'Industrial Zone', cooperation negotiations continue

While conversing with Mr. İbrahim Erdemoğlu, Chairman of Erdemoğlu Holding, in the newspaper, I looked at what he said last December in Adana regarding the $25 billion worth of investment they will put in Yumurtalık:

While we were continuing negotiations about a piece of land in Dörtyol, the period for the area allocated to Çalık Holding for the pipeline in Yumurtalık expired. We made a bid for that land.

The President of Republic gave instructions about the allocation of the said land in Yumurtalık to us 3.5 years ago. During that time, we expanded our investment plans. Our land requirement has reached 11 million square meters.

We purchased 4.5 million square meters from the tender announced by the Treasury. We also acquired 2.5 million square meters from citizens. We spent 4 billion lira for 6.5 million square meters of land.
When our land reached 6.5 million square meters, we made our initial request for investment. We received the authorization. Most recently, we also obtained the approval from the Ministry of Agriculture. If the area is declared an 'Industrial Zone', we will lay the foundation in 2026. We will start with an investment of 5.5 billion dollars in the first phase.

These investments, which will be 100% owned by SASA, will gradually proceed with paraxylene, propane, ethylene production, followed by a refinery and a port.

After completing the 5.5 billion dollar investment and seeing the results, we will start a 10 billion dollar investment. Our investments in Yumurtalık will continue at three-year intervals. They will reach 25 billion dollars in total.

When our investments come into operation, we will have a chance to replace our country's 22 billion dollar spending in imports.

I reminded Erdemoğlu of these points and asked about the current situation; he first replied:

- 'We are waiting for the declaration of the Industrial Zone.'

Then he sent me a note communicated by his advisor, Prof. İbrahim Turhan, regarding the investments in Yumurtalık.

It is publicly known that we have a major investment project in Yumurtalık, which includes a refinery with a processing capacity of light crude oil and condensate, petrochemical production facilities, a fuel and gas terminal, and storage areas over an area of 11 million square meters.

Both Erdemoğlu Holding and the project attract the interest of organizations operating in this sector worldwide. Opportunities for cooperation, ranging from commercial partnerships involving raw material supply and product sales to direct capital partnership, are already being discussed.

Two very large players operating as producers and sellers in the global energy market have expressed their interest in collaborations and even partnerships of various sizes.

In addition, the communication has been established to exchange ideas in this regard with the sovereign wealth fund of a country that is an important oil and gas producer in the world.

No preliminary agreement or memorandum of understanding has been signed. I can only emphasize that the interest shown points to concrete objectives.

The Scientific Committee will outline the roadmap.

Mr. İbrahim Erdemoğlu, Chairman of Erdemoğlu Holding, stated that he tries to meet with Prof. Şahin Albayrak, an artificial intelligence expert and faculty member at the Technical University of Berlin, whenever he goes to Germany.

- "Now, we have decided to establish a 'Scientific Committee' chaired by Prof. Şahin Albayrak. Prof. İbrahim Turhan has also started negotiations with the professors who will be in the scientific committee.

"He announced that foreign experts will also be part of the 'Scientific Committee.'

- "Once our 'Scientific Committee' is formed, it will hold 3-4 meetings a year. The strategy and roadmap that will carry the Erdemoğlu Group into the future will come from there.

"He emphasized that the 'Scientific Committee' will focus on different fields, from chemistry to artificial intelligence.

•          We will approach the ideas coming from the ‘Science Committee’ without bias. I believe this committee will present ideas that will open up paths for both us and our country.

No sector is actually lagging behind its state before the pandemic.
Mr. İbrahim Erdemoğlu, the Chairman of Erdemoğlu Holding, shared his observations regarding the recent state of the real sector as follows:

No sector is behind its state before the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, there are some that are in a better position.

What happened during the pandemic? The governments provided grants or interest-free loans to their citizens. Expenditures increased. Along with that, both the domestic market and exports became quite active in our country.

As orders increased, many industrialists went for capacity increases. Some doubled their capacities. Those who invested with loans, thinking that business would always continue to be booming, experienced the delusion of 'I can easily pay my debts.'

Especially in textiles and ready-made clothing, as capacities were increased, 2-2.5 year queues were formed for machinery purchases.
Afterward, when there was a stagnation in exports, the increased capacities remained unused.

Now that downsizings are on the agenda, inevitably voices in the real sector have grown louder.

Emphasizing that he is trying to "read the situation in reverse," he added:

- Look, we are at half the efficiency of Germany. Whatever happens, we must manufacture, we must work.

Source: Nasıl Bir Ekonomi Newspaper