BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Turkey’s new Black Sea gas find will move it towards energy self-sufficiency, Carlos Torres Diaz, Vice President, Head of Gas and Power Market Research at Rystad Energy told Trend.
Turkey’s president announced on June 5 that a 135 billion cubic meter natural (bcm) gas reserve has been discovered in the Black Sea.
“The recoverable volumes or the reservoir deliverability is yet to be proven. Nevertheless, if proven in combination to the additional resource from future discoveries will not only trigger significant investments in Turkey’s gas sector but will also help meet Turkey’s increasing demand for natural gas. Turkey is, for all intents and purposes, entirely reliant on imports at present to meet its natural gas demand, as domestic production represents only about 1 percent of domestic demand,” said Diaz.
However, the expert noted that the timing of the find could have not been planned much better as nearly 40 percent of Turkey’s contracted import volumes – representing 24 Bcm out of the 59 Bcm per annum total – are set to expire by the end of 2021.
“These include the pipeline volumes from Russia and Azerbaijan and LNG contracts with Qatar and Nigeria. Thus, providing a price competitiveness and a better bargaining power with the current suppliers. However, it’s not before the end of 2020s that the full potential of the field can be utilized.
It’s still far from attaining the position of gas exporter. The new find when developed will help reduce the country’s dependency on imports and move towards energy self-sufficiency. Nonetheless the dream is still far, but the new find has injected some hope and there’s definitely a light at the end of the tunnel,” Diaz concluded.
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