Page 8 - MEOG Week 01 2023

MEOG PROJECTS & COMPANIES MEOG

Turkey announces Black

Sea gas resource boost

TURKEY TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has of the pipelines on land have also been laid,” he
announced a 170bn cubic metre increase in the said while visiting Saipem’s Castorone pipelaying
country’s estimated natural gas reserves as part vessel.
of its ongoing exploration efforts in the Black He added that around “32 km of the 10-inch
Sea. Speaking following a December 26 cabi- [254mm] pipeline, designed as an auxiliary line,
net meeting, Erdogan said that a re-evaluation have been completed too”.
of data from the Sakarya gas field had provided Casterone is installing the 165-km deep-wa-
a boost of 112 bcm to 652 bcm, while sizea- ter section of pipeline, with Saipem’s Castoro
ble additional resources had been discovered 10 chosen to deploy 5 km of pipeline in shallow
through nearby drilling work. water, which was completed in July.
Turkish Petroleum’s (TPAO) “Fatih drill- Sakarya was first discovered by TPAO in
ing vessel has discovered 58 bcm of natural gas August 2020 with the 320 bcm Tuna-1 well,
reserves 3,023 metres below the sea level at [the] which was subsequently upgraded to 405 bcm
Caycuma 1 block. We expect this number to be two months later and renamed. In June 2021, the
revised upward with the new exploratory wells company announced that it had found another
we will open. Our new discovery will pave the 135 bcm with the Asmara-1 well, taking the total
way for similar discoveries in other geological volume discovered to 540 bcm.
fields adjacent to the region,” he said. The pipeline will connect Sakarya to gas-pro-
The discovery of Caycuma and the Sakarya cessing facilities under construction at the port
upgrade increases the total volume of gas discov- of Filyos in the northern province of Zonguldak.
ered in the Turkish sector of the Black Sea to 710 Erdogan’s December comments echo a state-
bcm, which Erdogan said is worth $1 trillion at ment in June in which he said that the field’s first
market rates. development phase would yield 10mn cubic
He explained that Caycuma would be tied metres per day (3.65 bcm per year) of gas. Cap-
back to the mainland via infrastructure dedi- ital expenditure of around $3.2bn is believed to
cated to the Sakarya field. be required to achieve first gas.
In September, TPAO said that it was expect- Meanwhile, Erdogan added that output
ing to begin feeding first gas into the Turkish grid from Sakarya would ramp up to reach a peak of
in March 2023. around 15 bcm per year in 2026, a year later than
At the time, Turkish Energy and Natural previous guidance.
Resources Minister Fatih Donmez was quoted On December 27, Donmez said that work on
by local media as saying: “We have 30 ships the onshore sections of the pipeline that will con-
operating at sea. 140 km of the 170-km [16-inch nect to the domestic grid are nearly complete,
(406mm)] of pipeline has been completed. 70% with 36 km of pipe already laid.™

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