Turkey has discovered a new natural gas reserve in the Black Sea that will meet its residential energy needs for more than three years, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday.
“We have discovered 75 billion cubic meters [2,650 cubic feet] of new natural gas. With this amount, we will meet the needs of our homes alone for about three-and-a-half years,” he said.
Erdoğan valued the reserve at some $30 billion.
“Our work at the Göktepe-3 well, which started on March 27 with our seventh-generation drilling ship Abdulhamid Han, was completed yesterday,” he said.
Turkey is still highly dependent on imports to cover its energy needs, though Erdoğan stressed Ankara’s desire to achieve energy independence.
“We will continue on our path without stopping, without resting and without paying heed to criticism or obstacles until we reach our goal of a fully energy-independent Turkey,” he said.
Turkey has previously announced several natural gas discoveries in the Black Sea with considerable fanfare, often accompanied by high-profile speeches from President Erdoğan and supportive media coverage presenting them as game changers for the country’s energy independence.
In August 2020 Ankara claimed to have found 320 billion cubic meters of gas in the Tuna-1 well, later renamed the Sakarya field; this estimate was subsequently revised upward to 405 billion cubic meters following additional exploration.
While these announcements were met with enthusiasm, experts have noted that production progress has been slower than anticipated and the economic impact has been less dramatic than initially promised.
Critics argue that such declarations, often timed before elections or during economic downturns, have been used to bolster public morale and political support, even as actual output and infrastructure development have lagged behind expectations.
© Agence France-Presse