Turkish research and exploration vessels are preparing to search for natural gas and conduct the necessary tests in the newly discovered Saqaria gas field in the Black Sea, Anadolu Agency reported.
The Al-Fateh vessel will head for exploration to the Sakarya gas field, in order to carry out drilling work in the "Turk Ali-1" well, after the completion of maintenance work and other technical preparations on the ship.
Al-Fateh’s vessel will drill wells in the Saqaria field, while the “Al-Qawuni” vessel will conduct tests on wells to obtain the necessary data to develop the field.
The Türk Ali-1 well will be one of the first detection wells to be drilled by Al-Fateh Ship, and it is expected that it will play an important role in clarifying the field's technical characteristics.
On 17 October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the discovery of an additional 85 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Black Sea, bringing the total gas reserves discovered in the "Tuna-1 / Sakarya field" to 405 billion cubic meters.
Erdogan announced in August that the field contained 320 billion cubic meters of gas, making it the largest natural gas discovery in Turkey.
Drilling of 40 wells
According to Anadolu Agency, Turkey, through its national ships, will drill 40 wells as part of its activities in the Black Sea.
While a three-dimensional seismic study was prepared for an area estimated at 33 thousand square kilometers (18%) of its exclusive economic zone, which has an area of 180 thousand square kilometers in the Black Sea.
Seismic studies will begin next November, in an area estimated at 8,500 square kilometers from the Saqaria field, and after about 6 months of working ships there, seismic data will be received by the first half of 2021.
In light of this data, new drilling and exploration operations will be determined to explore for gas in this field.
The value of the gas reserves discovered in the Sakarya field is equivalent to about 85-90 billion Turkish liras (10.7-11.3 billion dollars), and will allow Turkey to meet its domestic needs of natural gas locally for a period of 25 years, and to meet all of its gas needs for a period of 8 years.
Turkey consumes about 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.