Turkey spuds third exploration well in Black Sea

State-owned Turkish Petroleum (TPAO) has started drilling its latest ultra-deepwater exploration well in the Black Sea as it hunts for more gas reserves close to its major Sakarya gas project.

The Karasu-1 probe has just been spudded by TPAO’s Fatih drillship, according to Turkey’s Minister of Energy & Natural Resources Fatih Donmez, with results expected in April or May.

Since mid-2020, TPAO has discovered big volumes of gas — almost 20 trillion cubic feet — in its highly promising Black Sea acreage and has embarked on bringing Sakarya’s gas to shore in 2023.

Such is the importance of this gas play to Ankara’s government that three of TPAO’s four drillships are on exploration and development drilling duties there, having been pulled back from drilling controversial — and unsuccessful — wildcats in the exclusive economic zone of Cyprus over recent years.

The Karasu-1 probe is being drilled in about 2000 metres of water to a depth of about 3000 metres and is thought to be targeting Tertiary reservoirs, similar to Sakarya.

The drillship Fatih opened up this Black Sea gas play in August 2020, when it discovered 11.3 Tcf of gas with a wildcat called Tuna-1 (named after the Turkish word for the Danube), volumes that were boosted to 14.3 Tcf two months later after studying data.

Last year, TPAO drilled the successful Amasra-1 wildcat that found an extra 4.8 Tcf of gas, boosting total resources in the geological play to 19 Tcf.