Page 11 - MEOG Week 20 2022

MEOG PROJECTS & COMPANIES MEOG

TPAO announces drilling plans

as fourth drillship arrives

TURKEY TURKISH Petroleum (TPAO) has announced He said the development of gas resources
plans this week to kick off Turkey’s largest ever in the Black Sea was a ‘game-changer’ brought
drilling campaign as the company prepares to about by the expansion of the country’s fleet of
receive its fourth drillship. drillships, the latest of which is due to arrive in
Speaking to the Turkish parliament’s com- Mersin this week.
mission on public economic enterprises, TPAO TPAO acquired the Cobalt Explorer from
chairman and CEO Melih Han Bilgin said that South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine
the company would drill 150 wells this year. Engineering (DSME) in Q4 last year.
“This will mark the biggest number of wells Once two months of maintenance work has
TPAO drills in the history of the Republic of been carried out on the vessel – and it has been
Turkey and we see this as a challenge,” he said, renamed – it will join TPAO’s fleet which cur-
adding that 95 of the wells would be for explor- rently comprises Fatih, Kanuni and Yavuz, all
atory or appraisal purposes, with the remaining of which have been deployed to the Sakarya gas
55 seen as producers. field in the Black Sea.
TPAO currently produces around 170,000 “Focusing on offshore activities is paying off
barrels per day (bpd) across its portfolio of assets and the Sakarya gas field is the result of such
which are spread throughout Turkey, the Turk- efforts,” Bilgin said.
ish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Azer- TPAO discovered 320bn cubic metres of gas
baijan, Iraq and Russia. To achieve this level, at the Tuna-1 well in August 2020 and this was
Bilgin said the company has invested $17.5bn subsequently upgraded to 405 bcm two months
since 2012, noting that revenues over that period later and renamed Sakarya.
have amounted to $19bn. In June 2021, the company announced that it
The latest data on Turkish crude oil pro- had found another 135 bcm with the Asmara-1
duction shows a gross output of 63,000 bpd in well, taking the total volume discovered so far at
January. Sakarya to 540 bcm.™

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