ANKARA
Turkey will start drilling in the Black Sea with the oil corporation Shell in the first months of the new year, Turkish energy minister said Tuesday.
Also, Turkey will drill for hydrocarbons in different parts of Turkey using unconventional drilling methods in cooperation with the American multinational corporation Halliburton, Taner Yidiz said at a press conference in Ankara.
Turkey aims to increase its domestic resources in energy. At the moment, the country depends highly on foreign sources for fossil fuels. To decrease the energy imports, Turkey is seeking to find oil and gas within its territories and also targets to enhance current coal production.
The minister said a total of $1.1 billion was being invested in oil-and-gas exploration in Turkey.
“Turkish Mining Directorate’s three dimensional seismic ship will be launched within the first days of new year and it will be in operation in the second half of 2015,” Yildiz said. He added that the seismic ship was produced domestically.
In the refinery sector, he said that, a fuel oil conversion plant of the Turkish Petroleum Refineries Co., also known as TUPRAS, opened with a record $3 billion investment.
The minister said around 1.5 million meters was drilled for mining in 2014 and lignite reserves of Turkey jumped to 15 billion tons.
“We aim to build 17,500 megawatts coal plants with $30 billion investment,” he said.
Yildiz also said Turkey produced two million tons of boron and gained $1 billion profit from its sales.
Oil trade with Iraq
About Iraq, the minister said Turkey desired stability in Iraq and added that the dispute between Kurdistan Regional Government and Baghdad administration was resolved.
The export of the northern Iraqi oil through the Turkish port of Ceyhan without the consent of federal Iraqi government had strained ties between Erbil and Baghdad, triggering a legal wrestle in international courts which included the U.S. and Paris-based arbitration courts.
Yildiz said that 32.2 million barrels of oil was loaded from the Ceyhan port and around $2.5 billion income was generated.
He also added that 3.2 million barrels of oil from the Oil Marketing Company of Iraq was sold via Ceyhan port of which 520,000 barrels was bought by TUPRAS.
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