Turkey’s Yavuz drilling ship will be embarking on a new mission in the Black Sea next month, the country’s energy and natural resources minister said Tuesday.

Fatih Dönmez’s remarks came as he arrived in the northern Black Sea province of Zonguldak to inspect the building site of the natural gas processing facility, currently under construction at the Port of Filyos.

"Our Yavuz ship is at the port. It will be embarking on a very critical mission as of April 4," Dönmez told reporters.

The industrial complex will process the gas Turkey had discovered in the Sakarya gas field, located some 150 kilometers (93 miles) off the coast of Turkey in the Black Sea. The facility is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2023.

The country’s first drilling vessel, Fatih had discovered 540 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas in the Sakarya gas field since August 2020.

Dönez announced a cargo plane carrying the first "Christmas tree," an assembly of a multi-valved structure consisting of valves, spools and fittings used to control the flow of oil from the well, had landed in Turkey on Tuesday morning.

"Hopefully we will transfer it to Filyos as soon as possible. We will place it on Yavuz and take it to our well and install it with underwater robots. We are using the most advanced technologies in the world in this project," the minister said.

The gas extracted from the field will be brought onshore through a pipeline that will be laid beneath the Black Sea.

The country in January started delivering the equipment and has been expected to kick-start laying the deep-water pipes once all the tubes have been brought to the Port of Filyos. The process is expected to take about five months.

"These pipes will be placed hundreds of meters below the Black Sea. We have reached 60% of the pipe shipment," said Dönmez.

"Hopefully, our pipe delivery will be completed by June. And we will start the pipe laying process on the deep-sea side as of June or July," he added.

Scheduled to be constructed this year, the pipeline that will stretch around 170 kilometers will connect the wells in the region to the main grid.

Once completed, it will become one of the world's mega-projects, the minister noted.

"It is a highly environmentally friendly project that complies with international environmental standards. Almost all of the companies working with us here are companies that have done these works on a global scale," he added.

Dönmez said the number of workers on land alone would be doubled from the current 2,000 within two months.

"And on the sea side, we currently have about 1,000 employees. Some of our ships are working there," he said.

The minister said Turkey had completed eight drillings to date. "It’s not enough just to drill a well. We are also working on preparing it for production," he noted.

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