Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed that the country’s gas reserves in the Black Sea were now valued at $1 trillion.
This announcement by Erdogan comes after a new field find in the Black Sea and the revision of reserves in the Sakarya field.
Namely, Turkish Petroleum’s drillship Fatih discovered a new reserve of 58 billion cubic meters in the Caycuma-1 field, in addition to revising up an estimated volume in the Sakarya field to 652 bcm from the previous 540 bcm. As a result, the total volume of natural gas Turkey has discovered in the Black Sea amounts to 710 bcm.
“Our drillship Fatih has explored 58 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, 3,023 meters under the sea, at the Caycuma-1 block,” Erdogan said following a Cabinet meeting on Monday at the Presidential Complex in Ankara.
At the announcement of the Caycuma-1 field, President Erdogan stated that the country’s ultimate goal was to declare energy independence from foreign oil and natural gas as soon as possible since Turkey now has natural gas reserves in the Black Sea of 710 bcm with a market value of $1 trillion.
“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,” Erdogan told Anadolu Agency.
Last month, Erdogan said that Turkey was on track for the Sakarya gas field to go online in 2023. It is worth noting that he stated that the newly discovered Caycuma-1 field would be connected to the Sakarya field and from there to the national grid. Turkey has also been exploring hydrocarbon resources in the Mediterranean.
Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has floated the idea of setting up a ‘gas hub’ in Turkey following explosions that damaged Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea and halted its direct gas sales to Germany.
Earlier this month, Erdogan announced a discovery of 150 million barrels of net oil reserves valued at an estimated $12 billion. He added that it was one of the top 10 onshore discoveries in 2022. Turkey already produces 5,000 barrels of ‘very high-quality oil’ per day in four wells in the Shirnak province where the discovery was made.
The country aims to increase its daily output to 100,000 barrels next year. Also, daily production by state-owned oil and gas company Turkish Petroleum is on the rise. It produced 40,000 barrels five years ago and it produces 65,000 barrels today.
At the time of the announcement, Erdogan said that Turkish Petroleum accelerated its exploration and production activities during the pandemic with 34 more discoveries in 2021 alone and 71 million barrels added to the country’s current reserve.
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