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 TURKEY
Mediterranean
Despite concerted attempts to increase onshore oil and
gas production since the 1970s, Turkey has struggled to maintain output
from its geologically complex fields.
 There are four areas of offshore Turkey that are
intermittently explored, namely the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara
between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, the Aegean Sea itself and the
Mediterranean Sea.
At
the end of 2003 TPAO, the Turkish National Oil Company, stated it was
planning new exploration programmes in all these areas. However, most of
the potential in the Aegean Sea cannot be fully examined due to
conflicting Greek claims over the area.
Whilst gas production is very low relative to demand most
of Turkey’s non-associated gas comes from offshore while Turkey’s
onshore associated gas is re-injected into oilfields as part of an EOR
programme. The country's largest non-associated gas field is Marmara
Kuzey (North Marmara), located offshore in the Thrace-Gallipoli Basin of
the Sea of Marmara. It went onstream in May 1997 from 5 producing wells
and will soon double as a gas storage reservoir during periods of lower
demand.
 There are also a number of small, undeveloped gas
discoveries in Turkish waters. In the western Black Sea in 2004 the
Ayazli-1 exploration well was drilled in water depths of 76m, 200 km
east of Istanbul and 8km offshore. Six gas fields and prospects have
been identified in the region and the Ayazli-1 well was the first
offshore well drilled in Turkish waters of the Black Sea in 5 years.
The primary objective was a Tertiary gas sand located in
the nearby Akcakoca-1 well drilled by TPAO in 1975. Testing of multiple
zones flowed around 0.42 mm cubic metres of gas per day, from the Eocene
Kusuri formation and the filed has now been successfully re-drilled. In
2001 TPAO also announced that it had found gas in the Mersin and
Iskenderun Bays in the Mediterranean Sea.
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