Turkey Plans Oil and Gas Exploration in Bulgaria, Libya and Iraq

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey is in talks to look for oil and gas in Bulgaria, and is also planning exploration work in Iraq and Libya, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said.

State-run Turkiye Petrolleri AO will “likely” sign an agreement with an unspecified foreign company in the next month to search for energy in Bulgaria’s part of the Black Sea, Bayraktar told reporters in Turkey’s Giresun province. For Bulgaria, it will add to deals after the country late last year picked a unit of Shell Plc to explore for oil and gas in the Black Sea. 

TPAO is also interested in Libya, which launched its first exploration tender in over 17 years in March, as well as fields in Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, he added. 

Turkey, which is almost entirely reliant on imported oil and gas, has sought to increase production both at home and abroad in recent years. The country wants to leverage its geographical position to become a gas hub and cater to demand in the European Union and the Middle East. Talks are underway with Bulgaria to explore options to increase gas transit capacity at their joint border to boost flows into Europe.

TPAO started gas production from a field in its own section of the Black Sea in 2023, and is currently conducting surveys off the coast of Somalia. Exploration deals have no guarantee that they will result in the discovery of commercial quantities of oil or gas, but Turkey has pressed on with plans to expand with agreements in Pakistan and Hungary over the past year. 

The Turkish city of Istanbul was also the venue of Libya’s National Oil Corp. presenting its tender to potential investors in a roadshow last Thursday, following similar events in London and Houston.

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