Pipe laying for Black Sea gas begins

In the Black Sea, where Turkey has discovered a total of 540 billion cubic meters of natural gas, the ship "Castroro 10", which will place the pipes to carry the gas in question, passed through the Dardanelles Strait on 5 June . Following this development, an important step was taken to deliver Black Sea gas to households, TRT Haber reports.

Efforts to bring the natural gas in the Black Sea to the use of citizens and to households gained momentum.

Filyos Natural Gas Processing Facility, where the gas will be processed on land, is rising while the well preparation works continue at sea.

While 4,200 personnel are working in the field, 16 ships, 3 of which are drilling, are supporting the works.

The Bahamian flagged ship "Castroro 10", which will carry out pipe placement in shallow parts, passed through the Dardanelles on 5 June. The ship in question reached Filyos as of 7 June.

With a total length of 140 meters and a width of 30 meters, the ship has a weight of 10,487 gross tons. The ship was designed to accommodate 200 personnel.

Accompanying "Castroro 10" on its journey, the ship named "Maersk Tracker" acted as a trailer and ensured that this ship was brought to Turkey.

Filyos Port will be used intensively by the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) in the works in the region.

Pipe-laying process to start from shore on June 10

The first pipes in the 170-kilometer pipeline, which will carry the Black Sea gas under the sea, will be laid starting from the coast as of June 10.

Following the completion of the infrastructure and superstructure works in the shallow sea part, the pipes will begin to be laid on the seabed, starting from a depth of 50 meters in the shallow sea part.

With "Castoro 10", approximately 5 kilometers of pipes will be laid and installed in the shallow part.

In the deep sea part, which is the most critical stage in the mentioned operations, the pipe laying process at a depth of 2,000 meters will be carried out by the ship named Castorone.

Currently in the Eastern Mediterranean, the ship is expected to be in Turkey in July.

The process will take about 5 months

The pipeline, which will be approximately 170 kilometers long, will begin to be laid this month from shallow to deep sea. The pipeline laying process is expected to take approximately 5 months.

Castorone had previously completed deep-sea pipe-laying of the "Baltic Pipe" in the Baltic Sea. Castoro 10 and Castorone, owned by the Italian energy company, also played a role in the completion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

First of all, 6 to 10 wells will be connected to the production system to be established under the sea at the Sakarya Gas Field, and 10 million cubic meters of gas will be produced daily from these wells and given to Turkey's natural gas network in 2023. While this amount corresponds to 3.5-4 billion cubic meters on an annual basis, production will increase gradually, as in such fields in the world.

While the highest production level in the Black Sea is expected to be reached in 2027-2028, 40 million cubic meters of gas per day and approximately 15 billion cubic meters of gas on an annual basis will be produced in this period.

540 billion cubic meters of reserves

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on 21 August 2020 that the Fatih drilling ship had discovered 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Danube-1 well in the Sakarya Gas Field in the Black Sea. The discovery in question was recorded as the largest gas discovery in Turkey's history.

Erdogan announced that the total amount of reserves reached 405 billion cubic meters with an increase of 85 billion cubic meters detected in the Danube-1 well on October 17, 2020.

The gas reserve in the Black Sea reached 540 billion cubic meters in total after the discovery of 135 billion cubic meters in the Amasra-1 well.