Natural Gas

Natural gas, which is flammable, lighter than air, colorless and odorless, consists of light molecular hydrocarbons such as ethane (C2H6) and propane (C3H8) as well as methane (CH4), which constitutes its greatest density. In addition to light hydrocarbons, it also contains small amounts of heavy hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium and hydrogen sulfide. Natural gas can be found alone underground or can also be found with oil. Natural gas is used extensively in electricity production, in residences, industry and service sector.

In the world, Russia, Iran, Qatar, Turkmenistan and the USA have rich natural gas reserves. Russia, Iran, Qatar, China and Canada followed the USA with the highest production in 2019. As of the end of 2019, the world natural gas reserve was realized as 198.8 trillion m3 and 4 trillion m3 of natural gas was produced from these reserves in the same year.

Turkey consumed about 45.3 billion m3 in 2019, a total of 483 million m3 of natural gas and production. The remaining producible reserve is approximately 3.36 billion m3. With the new fields discovered as a result of the drilling performed for natural gas in our country in 2018 and 2019, natural gas production has increased in the last two years, and production has increased by 20% in 2018 and 11% in 2019 compared to previous years.

In 2019, approximately 45.21 billion m3 of natural gas was imported. LNG imports accounted for 28% of the total natural gas imports in 2019. In the same year, only 762 million m3 natural gas was exported to Greece.

The natural gas market in the world acts in parallel with the oil market. Natural gas prices were also quite low in 2020, when oil prices saw their lowest levels.

Within the scope of the activities to meet the increasing need for oil and natural gas from domestic resources as much as possible, the studies carried out in our country's poorly sought-after basins and especially in the marine areas in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean have accelerated. In recent years, hydrocarbon exploration has gained momentum with seismic data collection and drilling activities in our seas, as developments in marine drilling technology have revealed exploration and production opportunities in areas with high water depths (1.000-2.500 m). In this context, 2 seismic exploration and 3 drilling vessels were provided through both purchasing and domestic manufacturing.

In order to ensure the diversity of resources in the field of natural gas supply security of our country and to become a natural gas trade center in the medium and long term, our works continue in line with national energy policies.