Turkey unveils new gas discovery in Black Sea

Turkey, through its national oil and gas company TPAO, has discovered 135 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas in the Amasra-1 well in the North Sakarya field located in the Black Sea.

TPAO started drilling operations at the Amasra-1 well exploration well in the North Sakarya field in April 2021. The well was drilled using the Fatih drillship. TPAO bought the sixth generation Fatih drillship in 2017, under its original name Deepsea Metro II.

With the addition of the 135 bcm to the previously discovered volume of 405 bcm in the Sakarya gas field, the total gas reserves discovered in the Black Sea reached 540 bcm, TPAO said in a statement on Friday.

The Tuna-1 ultra-deep-water exploration well in block AR/TPO/KD/C26-C27-D26-D27, Turkey’s largest discovery, is now called the Sakarya gas field.

The new discovery at the Amasra-1 well, with a 1938 metre water depth and 3850-metre total depth, in the North Sakarya field will also be included in the Sakarya gas field development project.

The project includes the construction of seabed gas production systems, a gas processing centre within the Filyos Industrial Zone, and pipelines to connect these two units.

Turkey’s energy minister Fatih Donmez, said that the first step has been taken for the construction of the natural gas processing facility in Filyos, the first point where the Black Sea gas will land. The minister also said that the Fatih drillship is now drilling the Türkali-3 well.

In the first phase of the Sakarya Gas Field Development Project to be completed in 2023, ten million cubic metres (mcm) gas will be delivered per day to the onshore processing facility. TPAO plans to increase the project capacity to 40 mcm per day in the following years.

“New discovery in this world-class Western Black Sea basin, Sakarya field has the potential to support additional developments”, said Melih Han Bilgin, Chairman and CEO at TPAO, regarding deep-sea exploration, drilling and production activities within the scope of the Sakarya Gas Field Development Project.

“State of the art inversion technologies used by our Sakarya subsurface team continues to help us better define our discovered resource with additional discoveries which will follow and move rapidly to the development phase”.

Source: Offshore Energy Today