Fatih starts work at new well as Turkey’s Black Sea drillings go on

Turkey’s first drilling vessel has started works at a new borehole in the Black Sea’s Sakarya gas field, home to Turkey’s largest-ever natural gas discovery, said the country’s energy and natural resources minister.

Fatih Dönmez and the state energy company Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) Sunday said on Twitter that the Fatih vessel arrived at the Türkali-5 well to carry out the new drilling.

“Fatih drilling ship is at Türkali-5, new well in the Sakarya Gas Field,” TPAO said.

“Every new day is a new step in Turkey’s discovery. We are moving step by step towards 2023, when our discovery will meet our nation,” Dönmez tweeted.

Fatih has so far carried out activities at the Tuna-1, Türkali-1, Türkali-2, Türkali-3, Türkali-4 and Amasra-1 exploration wells, where operations extended to depths of up to 3,950 meters (12,959 feet).

Within one year, Turkey has completed five deep-sea drillings in the Black Sea at the Sakarya field, where it has discovered more than half a trillion cubic meters of natural gas since August last year.

The nation in June announced it discovered 135 billion cubic meters (bcm) of additional natural gas in the Amasra-1 borehole in the northern Sakarya field, raising the total discovery in the region to 540 bcm.

Last year, the Fatih drillship discovered 405 bcm of natural gas in the Tuna-1 well, some 170 kilometers (about 106 miles) off the Black Sea coast, in the country’s biggest discovery.

Ankara aims to start pumping gas from the Sakarya field to its main grid in 2023, with sustained plateau production starting in 2027 or 2028.

A seabed pipeline stretching around 169 kilometers (105 miles) is scheduled to be constructed in 2022 to connect the wells in the region to the main grid.