OREANDA-NEWS  "We are endeavoring to have a time to start the first stage of the mining of the Black Sea gas field by 2023. Our technical capabilities in drilling enabled to us to get rid of external dependence. Gas from the Black Sea will reduce our dependence on fuel imports", - Erdogan said. 

The gas torch was lit on the “Fatih” drilling vessel, which was conducting exploration and test drilling on the shelf.
 
"Today we are testing the gas flow at the Turk Ali 1 well. And for the first time, we are lighting gas on the surface, produced from a depth of hundreds of meters" , - Erdogan said. The well is fully prepared for test gas production from the field.

Turkey has drilled five wells in the Black Sea, and the authorities are building onshore infrastructure for pumping and storing gas.

Erdogan said on August 21, 2020 that Turkey had discovered large gas reserves in the Black Sea. In October last year, Erdogan specified that "the volume of proven gas reserves in the Danube-1 section of the Sakarya field amounted to 405 billion cubic meters".