Türkiye’s daily oil production has reached the highest level in 32 years, the state-owned energy company announced Tuesday, driven by the latest discoveries spearheaded by a massive find in the country’s south earlier last month.
The daily output has topped 70,000 barrels, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) said. “With our new discoveries, we have exceeded the highest domestic daily production level in the last 32 years,” the company wrote on Twitter.
Türkiye, in early May, announced it had discovered 1 billion barrels of oil in a field in the southeast province of Şırnak, the largest onshore oil find in the country.
TPAO has drilled 2,771 meters deep so far and found an over 162-meter light oil-bearing reservoir, with further prospects to be explored in the area.
The well, called Martyr Aybüke Yalçın-1 and located 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Cizre town, currently produces some 10,000 barrels of oil daily, TPAO said.
The state oil company said it would drill back-to-back appraisal wells and construct the full field development plan by the end of the year.
The production target is set for 100,000 barrels per day, more than doubling Türkiye’s oil production.
Türkiye discovered 150 million barrels of oil in the southeast’s Mount Gabar area in December 2022.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had dubbed it “one of the top ten onshore discoveries in 2022” and said it was valued at approximately $12 billion.
Türkiye, which has little oil and gas, imports nearly all of its energy needs. The country consumed 246 million barrels of imported crude oil in 2022, besides 29 million barrels of locally produced crude oil, according to official data.
Türkiye depends on imports from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.
Ankara has started developing a 710 billion cubic-meter natural gas field in the Black Sea, which was discovered gradually in August 2020. In April, it started pumping natural gas into the national grid.
