Turkey’s first drillship, Fatih, will begin a new drilling mission at the Türkali-2 well in the Black Sea next month at the latest, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez said Monday.
"Engineering studies are ongoing to bring the gas ashore after production starts. We hope to connect the gas discovered in the Sakarya gas field to Turkey’s transmission system at Filyos by 2023," Dönmez disclosed in a televised interview with private broadcaster Bloomberg HT.
On Sunday, he announced via Twitter that the drillship reached its new location in the Black Sea at the Türkali-2 drilling well.
The new mission announcement comes after state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) announced last week that drilling operations at the Türkali-1 well in the Sakarya gas field were completed after 77 days.
Fatih's operations extended to depths of over 3,920 meters (2.4 miles) in the Türkali-1 well.
The drillship last year discovered 405 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas at the Tuna-1 location in the Sakarya gas field, located about 100 nautical miles north of Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
Turkey expects the first gas flow from the field in 2023, with an envisaged annual gas flow of 5-10 bcm. The field is expected to reach a production plateau of around 15 bcm as of 2025. The country plans to open up to 40 wells in the field, of which up to 10 wells are projected to be completed by 2023, officials said earlier.
Yavuz's next mission
Dönmez highlighted that Turkey has conducted eight drillings over two years in the Eastern Mediterranean, and despite some indications of a gas find, no definitive results have been announced.
Currently located in the Taşucu port in Turkey’s coastal city of Mersin, the Yavuz drilling vessel's next mission will be determined once the seismic research has concluded.
Dönmez’s statement on the country’s seismic and drilling activities on its continental shelf, in compliance with international law, came amid a new round of exploratory talks between Turkey and Greece on issues surrounding the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean region on Monday.
He expressed his hope that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s call for an international conference between countries with coastlines on the Eastern Mediterranean would be positively received and that negotiations could soon commence.