Page 6 - FSUOGM Week 12 2023

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM

Turkey eyes 40 bcm per year

gas exports

TURKEY TURKEY wants to position itself as a key nat- June 2021, the company announced that it had
ural gas exporter on the back of its key Sakarya found another 135 bcm with the Asmara-1 well,
Turkey wants to change discovery in the Black Sea, the country’s energy taking the total volume discovered to 540 bcm.
from a gas transit minister, Fatih Donmez, said in a TRT TV inter- The field’s first development phase would
nation to a gas exporter. view on March 19. yield 10mn cubic metres per day (3.65 bcm
The implementation of an international gas per year) of gas. Capital expenditure of around
hub could enable the country to export 40bn $3.2bn is believed to be required to achieve first
cubic metres of gas per year, he said. gas. Output at Sakarya to ramp up to around 15
“We did not abandon our plans and [the hub] bcm per year in 2026.
may begin its work within a year. Now we have At the same time, Russia is courting Tur-
our own gas. We consume around 55-60 bcm key as a potential means of delivering extra gas
of gas annually, can have 100 bcm, and, if we to Europe, absent the-now-inoperable Nord
plan it all properly, we will have 40 bcm of gas to Stream pipelines. Moscow has suggested dou-
export,” the minister said. bling the capacity of the TurkStream pipeline
Turkey has traditionally served as a gas tran- that runs from Russia under the Black Sea to
sit nation, delivering from Azerbaijan and Rus- Turkey to 62 bcm per year. However, it remains
sia through pipelines. But Donmez said that the to be seen how receptive European buyers will be
country should not be treated as a transit nation to continued Russian gas in the coming years, as
any longer. the EU strives to cut all energy ties with Moscow.
“It will be a country housing a hub of inter- Meanwhile, Turkey is set to play a critical
national gas trade, and it is planned to be built transit role in the EU plan to double shipments
within a year,” he said. of gas from Azerbaijan to 20 bcm per year by
Sakarya was first discovered by Turkey’s state- 2027. But there is concern about how much of
owned TPAO in August 2020 with the 320 bcm this extra gas can be delivered at Azeri fields, and
Tuna-1 well, which was subsequently upgraded how much will simply be delivered from Russia
to 405 bcm two months later and renamed. In for onward delivery, indirectly, to Europe. ™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 12 21•March•2023