Fatih DONMEZ, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, made a statement for the potential reserve that can meet Turkey's 35-year needs in all residential buildings. He said, "We will be using it at our homes from the month of May. The production cost of domestic gas will be cheaper than the cost of using imported gas. On April 20, our President will share the good news and change the agenda.”
The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources shared information about the latest situation in Black Sea gas. DONMEZ made important statements about the Sakarya Gas Field, the largest energy project in the history of Turkey and drew attention to the balance of imports and exports.
The prominent details from the statement of the Minister about Black Sea gas were as follows:
Why is this project important? Unfortunately, we are dependent on foreign resources. We import 99 percent of the natural gas we consume in the country. 99 Percent of the oil and petroleum products we consume are imported. We spent about $95 billion on energy last year. Our imports amounted to about 350 billion dollars. 30 Percent of this is energy.
We are competitive in the industry. In order to make a difference, we need to reduce the cost of energy products. We acted within the framework of our President's vision of 'Doing whatever it takes to reduce external dependence on energy'. When we look at it based companies points, TPO is in the top 5 in the world by fleet size. We have started to get the results of this as well.
Although there were some problems in logistics during the pandemic, our staff stayed at the factory to send those products here on time. This construction was carried out during the pandemic period. 51 ships worked. Some of them worked for a short time. We are very far from the coast. It's a difficult project. Our service ships go in 8-10 hours. Helicopters are 40 minutes... Almost in the middle of the Black Sea. The water depth in the area where we are drilling is 2 thousand 200 meters. We are moving on land close to 3 thousand meters.
When we started this job and sent the Fatih Drilling vessel to the Mediterranean for operation, the number of employees on board was not enough to exceed the number of fingers in one hand. But today, 65-70 percent of the 4 drilling vessels are made up of Turkish personnel. We have reversed the brain drain. We have recruited about 100 engineers. We were faced with embargoes. For this reason, some foreign citizens became Turkish citizens.
