After the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, BP faced difficulty around the world and the company was rumored to be thinking of pulling out of many countries including Turkey. BP denied the allegations at first, but then showed they were not completely groundless by selling its wholesale LPG and Petgaz-branded bottled gas businesses to the Russian Oteko Group in 2012. Murat LeCompte, director of Corporate Communications and Media Relations at BP, said to an AA reporter that there would not be any change in their investment plans in Turkey. There are 650 gas stations in Turkey today and BP aims to increase this figure to 800 within two years, LeCompte said. "Turkey is a strategic country for BP. There are global strategic investments such as the Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan pipeline and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline [TANAP]. For this reason, BP will not depart from the oil distribution sector in Turkey," LeCompte added. However, while both the price cap that is applied by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority and utilization agreements that are going to be renewed this year indicate that there will be mobility in the market, BP is still said to be getting prepared to leave the Turkish market.