Türkiye announces massive natural gas discovery

Ankara has increased its initial assessment of an offshore deposit in the Black Sea and found a new gas field

Türkiye’s natural gas reserves in the Black Sea now total 710 billion cubic meters, with a market value of $1 trillion, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced after a new deposit was discovered and a previous find was revised higher.

The increase is mainly due to the Sakarya Gas Field, which is now estimated to hold 652 billion cubic meters of gas (bcm) compared to an initial assessment of 540 bcm, Erdogan said following a cabinet meeting on Monday, adding that Türkiye has drilled 13 wells in the Sakarya field.

He also mentioned a separate find of 58 billion cubic meters of gas in another offshore field nearby.

“With our new discovery at the Caycuma-1, our gas reserves in the Black Sea have risen by 170 billion cubic meters to 710 billion cubic meters,” the Turkish president said.

Erdogan noted that the newly discovered Caycuma-1 field would be connected to the Sakarya field and from there to the national grid. The Sakarya deposit appears to be the largest ever discovered in the Black Sea and is due to go online next year, according to the president.

READ MORE: Erdogan outlines Türkiye’s gas ambitions

“Our new exploration will pave the way for similar explorations in other geological fields adjacent to the region. We will launch new drilling as soon as possible,” he added.

Before the discovery, Türkiye planned to produce gas at an annual rate of 3.5 bcm, with a target of raising output to 15 bcm annually within four years and covering a third of the country’s demand.

This comes as Ankara seeks to diversify away from energy imports, which meet almost all of its domestic consumption. The country is highly dependent on supplies from Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Nigeria, and Algeria, as well as LNG imports from Qatar and the US.

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