Country completed 11,000 square kilometers of three dimensional seismic exploration at Sakarya Gas Field, Donmez says
Turkey plans to construct 169 kilometers of seabed natural gas pipelines at Sakarya Gas Field in 2022, according to the country’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez on Wednesday.
Speaking at Sakarya Gas Field Flaring Ceremony, Donmez said that the flow test of Turkali-2 well is being conducted today, at which Kanuni drilling vessel carries out well completion operations.
Five deep sea drillings completed within one year in Black Sea at Sakarya Gas Field, Donmez noted, adding that Fatih drillship completed its operations Turkali-1, Turkali-2 and Turkali-3 exploration wells while Kanuni started well completion operations in Turkali-2 last month.
“We confirmed the amount of natural gas that we discovered at the exploration wells. We analyzed 140 gas and water samples in five wells. We finalized fluid property, pressure and temperature measurements with 1,090 mini tests in order to examine reservoir conditions,” Donmez said.
Reiterating that Black Sea gas will be transported to the mainland in three phases,Donmez noted that the first phase of designing the seabed natural gas production systems is comleted.
“In 2022, we will be laying 169 kilometers of seabed pipeline,” Donmez said, adding that all the phases are progressing in an integrated and coherent way.
As part of the second phase, Donmez also said that the foundation of onshore natural gas processing facility was laid one and a half months ago.
He told that the third phase will include the construction of pipelines that will connect those two units together.
As the activities for bringing Black Sea gas ashore are ongoing, Turkey’s seismic activities also continue, Donmez noted.
“We completed 11,000 square kilometers of three dimensional seismic exploration at Sakarya Gas Field and proceeded to the interpretation stage. Hopefully, this data will be the harbinger of good news,” he said.
Turkey’s largest gas find, which reached 405 billion cubic meters (bcm), was discovered by the country’s drillship, Fatih, in the Sakarya Gas Field in the Black Sea last year.
Last month, Turkey announced a second discovery of 135 bcm, bringing the cumulative gas discovery total to 540 bcm.
Donmez previously said the maximum annual production from the field could range between 15 and 20 bcm, corresponding to around 30% of the country’s yearly gas consumption, which reached 48.2 bcm in 2020.
Turkey’s new gas discovery could alleviate much of its gas import dependence, 48 bcm of which mainly comes from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran via pipelines along with liquefied natural gas from several countries, including Nigeria, Algeria and the US.
First production from the Sakarya field is forecast to start by 2023.