ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2023) Turkey has turned down an offer from an unnamed global energy giant to jointly develop and operate a massive gas field in the Black Sea, Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Sunday, citing sources.
In 2020, Turkey discovered a large Black Sea gas field, later named Sakarya, whose reserves were estimated at 540 billion cubic meters. Turkey also discovered a new gas reserve off its Black Sea coast late last year. Together with the revised deposits at the Sakarya field, the country's offshore gas reserves stand at 710 billion cubic meters, an equivalent of $1 trillion on global market.
According to the newspaper, several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, have already reached out to Turkey to propose their cooperation.
This time, however, one of the world's energy giants, which "dominates the global energy sector," knocked on Ankara's door with an offer to give half of the market value of the current discovery to Turkey in cash. In return, the energy behemoth sought to carry out all exploration, extraction and sale of natural gas found in the Black Sea together with Turkey, according to the report.
Energy management officials told the Sabah newspaper that the offer was rejected, with Turkey signaling that it was capable of extracting and selling natural gas independently.
