President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the discovery of new natural gas deposits in the Black Sea, where Turkey plans to start production in 2023, Al Jazeera reports.
State Energy Company Tpao found 135 billion cubic meters of gas at the Amasra-1 offshore well, bringing the total amount of deposits discovered over the past year to 540 billion cubic meters, Erdogan said in televised remarks.
Officials have said Tpao is planning to develop the deposits on its own, and won’t need foreign financing.
Turkey currently imports nearly all of the 50 billion cubic meters of gas it consumes annually. Officials expect domestic production to boost the nation’s gas demand by 60%, to as much as 80 billion cubic meters per year by 2030.
