Turkish vessels started the search for Natural Gas sites early in July of this year and as a result of making it’s biggest ever discovery of 320 billion cubic metres at a deep sea site, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed that only will the search be stepped up for more, but that he also expects the first consumers of this natural gas to start in 2023.
It’s a huge find and could reap massive economic benefits as the potential savings on energy imports could be near to $41bn USD which is what Turkey spent last year, with the main supplies coming from neighbourhood Russia. It would certainly ease Turkey’s dependence on costly imports and it could be a ‘new era’ for the country.
At the news conference last week in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace a delighted Erdogan commented that ‘My Lord has opened the door to unprecedented wealth for us’ and he went on to add that due to their extra searches further afield, ‘we are going to speed up our operations in the Mediterranean with the deployment by the end of the year of the Kanuni (drilling ship) which is currently in Maintenance – god willing we expect similar good news’.
Of course, there is still a lot of work to do however, before they can start to extract the natural gas, and it could take several years plus billions of dollars in Investment, but it will be a price well paid based on the financial and economic rewards, plus, it will also further Turkey’s ambitions to become a new global superpower, something they have been working well towards for some time now.
Other countries have also found natural gas reserves in both the Black Sea & the Mediterranean including the Romanians, and the Egyptians who are currently working on the largest site ever discovered at Zohr field, which holds 850 billion cubic metres.
It’s certainly positive news, and with the increased efforts in research & exploration, it’s likely that there’s more out there, and Erdogan’s Turkey have just put themselves in the captain’s seat to find it.
