President Recep Erdogan, photo: Pool Presidential Press Service / AP / Profimedia Images
A Turkish exploration ship has discovered a new natural gas deposit in the Black Sea waters, with reserves estimated at 75 billion cubic meters, Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Saturday, according to Agerpres.
“We discovered a 75 billion cubic meters of gas. This quantity is sufficient to cover the needs of our households for about 3.5 years, and the economic value is $ 30 billion,” the Turkish leader added.
Erdogan stressed that the discovery took place in the Goktepe-3 well, with a depth of 3,500 meters, which is part of the Sakarya deposit ensemble, in the Black Sea, discovered in 2020 and which started production in 2023, according to the TRT Turkish public network. It is located about 180 kilometers northwest of the Port of Filos, in the province of Zonguldak, to which the gas pipeline reaches the land deposits.
According to the quoted source, these deposits currently produce 9.5 million cubic meters per day, but it is expected that the production will double next year and will be quadruped in 2028.
Turkey consumes between 50,000 and 60,000 cubic meters of gas annually, ie almost 150 million cubic meters a day, most of which are imported from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.
Most Turkish households are connected to the public gas and heating network, but also 19%of electrical production depends on gas, after coal (35%) and before hydraulic energy (21%), wind (10%) or solar (7.5%).
