Black Sea Gas To Cost Turkey Less Than Imports - Energy Minister

Black Sea Gas to Cost Turkey Less Than Imports - Energy Minister

ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st January, 2023) Gas production in the Black Sea will be cheaper for Turkey than imported gas and will lower domestic energy prices,�Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said on Tuesday.

In 2020, Turkey discovered a large Black Sea gas field, Sakarya, with reserves estimated at 652 billion cubic meters. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later announced the discovery of another gas field in the Black Sea, with reserves of 58 billion cubic meters. Thus, the country's offshore gas reserves stand at 710 billion cubic meters, the equivalent of $1 trillion on the global market.

"Black Sea gas will cost Turkey cheaper than imported gas. All this will affect prices within the country," Donmez was quoted as saying by Turkish news agency Anadolu.

The minister estimated that annual gas consumption in Turkey varied from 55-60 billion cubic meters.

"Exploration of new promising fields continues. Of course, we want to be able to extract the entire necessary volume of gas within the country in an ideal scenario. Time will tell. Currently, production allows to cover only 1% of Turkey's gas needs," the new outlet quoted the minister as saying.

Russia is one of the main gas suppliers to Turkey and accounts for about 44% of the country's total supplies. In November 2022, Donmez said that Turkey was partially paying for Russian gas in rubles after Moscow announced a shift to payments in national currencies in response to financial curbs imposed on the country by the West over the military operation in Ukraine.