ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the discovery of a large natural gas reserves off the Black Sea coast, days after he promised “good news” that would usher in a “new era” for the energy dependent country.
Erdogan said the amount of gas discovered is 11 trillion cubic feet, adding that he hopes to start extracting and using the gas by 2023.
If confirmed as recoverable resources, the reserves could ease the country’s dependence on costly energy imports and the financial market jitters that have seen the country’s currency plummet to record lows this summer.
The Turkish drilling ship, Fatih, had been carrying out exploration operations in the Tuna-1 sector in the western Black Sea for the past month. The sector is near where Romania has also found gas reserves.
The discovery comes as tensions between NATO allies Turkey and Greece are running high over oil and gas exploration in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean. Greek and Turkish warships have been shadowing each other after Turkey sent a research ship to look for potential undersea oil and gas deposits. The Turkish ship is scheduled to search for energy reserves there until Aug. 23.
Separately, Turkey is also at odds with Cyprus over energy exploration around the island. It has dispatched warship-escorted vessels off Cyprus’s coast to drill for gas, insisting that it’s acting to protect its interests and those of Turkish Cypriots to the area’s natural resources. The Greek Cypriot government of the ethnically split island has slammed Turkey for encroaching in its waters and economic rights.