28 July 2017•Update: 28 July 2017
ANKARA
Ankara will conduct drilling activities with Turkey's new seismic vessel as part of natural gas and oil exploration activities in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, according to Berat Albayrak, Turkey's energy and natural resources minister on Friday.
Albayrak said that negotiations are almost complete for a new seismic vessel that will be placed on the country's inventory in the last quarter of this year.
"We will make our own drilling activities with our engineers," he said.
Turkey's first seismic vessel Barbaros Hayrettin Pasa already started conducting operations in the Mediterranean since April 2017 while a second vessel, MTA Oruc Reis, will soon be ready for exploration, he explained.
The minister said that many international reports declare that this century will be one for natural gas.
"In the next five years there will be an additional LNG [liquefied natural gas] capacity of 60 to 100 billion cubic meters, which will come from Australia and the U.S. We [Turkey] will also work on our LNG markets. Before the end of this year, Turkey's second floating LNG plant (FSRU) will be operational," he declared.
Turkey's first FSRU became operational in Izmir in December 2016.
Albayrak said that Turkey's LNG capacity is expected to reach 107 million cubic meters (mcm) per day from the current capacity of 64 .
Wind energy tender
Referring to Turkey's wind project tender - Turkey's Renewable Energy Resources Area Project (YEKA) to enable the country to install 1,000 megawatts of wind capacity in seven regions of Turkey with high wind power potential at a cost of around $1.2 billion, he said, "We will hold a reverse auction on the wind power project tender next week."
A consortium of Turkish and international companies submitted a total of eight final bid offers for Turkey's 1,000 megawatts of wind power in the YEKA project on Thursday, July 27.
The wind projects plan to generate 3,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, powering 1.1 million homes a year.
