Turkey has started exporting natural gas to Europe for the first time. The President of the Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced this in an address to the nation after a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, which he chaired in Ankara.
"BOTAŞ started exporting gas to Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. "For the first time, we are exporting gas to two European countries that are not our neighbors," Erdogan said, referring to Hungary and Romania.
He called the export of gas to three European countries “a big step” to achieve the goal of Turkey becoming an international energy trading center. Agreements for the supply of natural gas through Turkey to Europe were signed in 2023. Energy supplies to Romania began in October last year, and to Hungary in April this year. Turkey will export gas to Bulgaria from April 2023
In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the idea of creating a hub on Turkish territory, where the lost volume of transit through the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline would be redirected. Turkish officials say that in terms of infrastructure in the country, almost everything is ready for the project. At the end of December 2023, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that the implementation of the project to create a hub could begin in 2024. The head of the Turkish Ministry of Energy, Alparslan Bayraktar, for his part, announced plans to create a financial center in Istanbul as part from a hub project with the participation of the Turkish company BOTAŞ and the Russian Gazprom.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that thanks to the active work on the exploration and production of natural gas, the country has already been given the opportunity to provide 2 million households with the use of this fuel with its own resources.
"We have made great progress in resourcing our country. The daily production of natural gas at Filios (the gas terminal where gas is supplied from the Sakaria field in the Black Sea) exceeded 5.1 million cubic meters. From there, we can meet the natural gas needs of 2 million households. Our drilling vessel Fatih has started drilling two more wells in the Sakarya gas field,” he said during a speech at the end of a government meeting that was broadcast on local TV channels.
Erdogan also announced that "the country's historical record has been broken and daily oil production at Gabar in southeastern Turkey has risen to more than 43,000 barrels." “By the end of the year, we intend to increase this figure to 100 thousand barrels”, he said.
The Turkish president also noted that exploration and drilling continues in other southeastern regions of the country. "Exploration and drilling activities continue at Hakkari and Siirt. The resources located there have started to bring benefits to Turkey, which could not develop them due to decades of rampant terrorism in those areas, Erdogan said. Now, according to him, “terrorism in these regions is losing ground” and this will have a positive impact on the country's economy.