Turkiye to extend incentives for $10B Black Sea gas field development

Baku, April 21, AZERTAC Turkiye will be extending government support for the massive project to develop the natural gas field it discovered in the Black Sea, according to a presidential decree Wednesday, Daily Sabah newspaper reports. The state energy company Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) project will be provided tax cuts, the country's Official Gazette said. The project's total fixed investment stands at around TL 145.1 billion ($9.9 billion) and will last for 11 years, it noted. Turkiye is building an industrial complex that will process the gas the country discovered in the Sakarya gas field, located some 150 kilometers (93 miles) off the coast of Turkiye in the Black Sea. The facility is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2023. The country’s first drilling vessel, Fatih, has discovered 540 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas in the Sakarya gas field since August 2020. Turkiye is fully dependent on gas imports, mainly from Russia, but the Sakarya field is expected to reduce those imports by about a quarter once it reaches peak production. Ankara plans to begin pumping gas from the southwest Black Sea field in 2023 but must first build an offshore pipeline network and processing facilities.