Gas production at Sakarya Field rises to 6 mln cubic meters

ISTANBUL

Daily natural gas production from the Sakarya Field in the Black Sea has reached 6 million cubic meters, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said.

The production at the Sakarya Field now meets the gas needs of some 2.6 million homes out of a total natural gas consuming 20 million homes in the country, according to the minister.

The Sakarya Field’s production is expected to rise to 10 million cubic meters by April next year, Bayraktar said, adding that production at this site will continue well into 2055.

“The Sakarya Field alone is not enough for Türkiye, which consumes around 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually. We need to boost gas production,” he noted.

Türkiye will continue to conduct explorations in the Black Sea, Mediterranean, Somalia and Libya in the future to increase production, according to Bayraktar.

He also noted that daily oil production from the field in Gabar Mountain is currently at 47,000 barrels, whereas in 2016 Türkiye’s total output from different regions was only 36,000 barrels.

Meanwhile, following discoveries over the past couple of years, the crude oil and natural gas extraction index reached a record high of 147.8 in June, showed data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

The index initially recorded at 69.6 in January 2005 and averaged around 75 until 2021.

Following the country's largest natural gas discovery in the Sakarya Field in 2020, the index, which increased to 99.4 in December of that year, surpassed the 100 threshold for the first time in May 2021.

The index was recorded at 112.9 in December 2022, following the discovery of crude oil in Gabar Mountain.