ANKARA

Türkiye will meet approximately 30% of its annual natural gas need from Black Sea reserves when full capacity is achieved in operation, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Thursday.

Speaking at the commissioning ceremony of Black Sea natural gas in Zonguldak, Erdogan said Türkiye is "taking a historic step towards the energy independence."

It took less than three years for Türkiye to offer the discovered gas to users, the Turkish president said.

"When we started operating at full capacity, we will be able to meet about 30% of our country's annual need from these reserves.

"We will extract 10 million cubic meters of gas per day from the Sakarya field in the first place and 40 million cubic meters per day in the future through the new gas wells that we will drill," he added.

Erdogan further said the Black Sea natural gas will not only "significantly reduce our country's dependence on foreign natural gas, but also make Filyos and Zonguldak an important energy hub."

The Turkish president also announced two "good news" for citizens.

Nearly 25 cubic meters of gas per month will be deducted from household gas bills for one year and natural gas consumption at residential places will be free of charge for one month in a bid to protect citizens against rising energy costs.

In August 2020, 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas were discovered in the Tuna-1 well in the Black Sea, making it the country's largest gas discovery in history.

With an additional 85 billion cubic meters discovered in October 2020, the total quantity of discovered gas reserves was 405 billion cubic meters.

Following the discovery of 135 billion cubic meters in the Amasra-1 well in June 2021, the Black Sea gas reserves totaled 540 billion cubic meters.

A further 58 billion cubic meters of gas were found in December 2022 in the Caycuma-1 well in the southwestern part of the Black Sea.

An independent evaluation found that the country's total gas reserves would reach 710 billion cubic meters as at the end of 2022, with a market value in the region of $1 trillion.