Dailysabah reported: The indigenousness of Turkey’s drilling vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean is highly significant for the country in terms of warding off international pressure, an official from Turkey’s main oil exploration company Turkish Petroleum (TPAO) stressed on Wednesday.
“Two of the seven ships that continue drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean are Turkish. Today, we see even more clearly that if we didn’t have domestic ships, we probably wouldn’t have carried out these drilling activities,” Ahmet Türksoy, head of the strategic development department of TPAO, said at the 12th International Energy Congress and Expo in Ankara.
Turkey, as a guarantor nation to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and supporter of its rights to Eastern Mediterranean resources, is currently conducting hydrocarbon exploration with its drilling vessels Fatih and Yavuz along with the country’s two other seismic vessels.
Türksoy underlined that Ankara has continued drilling activities with four deep sea wells and three shallow sea wells this year, including Güzelyaka-1 in the Marmara Sea and Alanya-1, Finike-1, Güzelyurt-1, Kuzupınarı-1, Karpaz-1 and K.Erdemli-1 in the Eastern Mediterranean. The country also aims to open five new deep sea wells in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2020, according to Türksoy.
