TPAO to Drill in Turkish Med

Exploration drilling will start offshore Turkey in the Mediterranean later this month, a source familiar with the operation told NGW July 16 - believed to be the first in the Turkish eastern Mediterranean.

An exploration well would be drilled to about 6,000 meters total depth, he said, adding that the well is not in any Turkish offshore area disputed by neighbouring states.

The well's operator is Turkish state upstream firm TPAO's wholly-owned subsidiary, Turkish Petroleum International Company (TPIC).

Caspian Drilling Company (CDC), which is 92%-owned by Azerbaijan’s state-run Socar and 8% by others, will be the drilling contractor. CDC has experience of drilling in the eastern Mediterranean, having drilled a well to a depth of 5,800 meters in Israeli’s Shemen bloc that cost $80mn in 2012 but didn’t find any hydrocarbon reserves. 

CDC also drilled all wells at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block as well as Shah Deniz gas field in Azeri section of the Caspian Sea, in both cases with BP as operator. The source told NGW anonymously that exploration wells in the Turkish Mediterranean sector would be targeting natural gas. The well is to be drilled late July by the drillship Fatih, named after Istanbul's Ottoman conqueror, Sultan Fatih Sultan Mehmet (photo of ship courtesy of TPIC)