CENTRAL NEWS
Erdogan announced that the Fatih ship, which set out from Istanbul in May and began work in July, completed drilling and tests over a period of 3 weeks and found 320 billion cubic meters of gas. A ship which departed from Istanbul, taking 2 months to arrive at the site, extraordinarily accomplished this job in 3 weeks.
It is incredible that Erdogan has fed this narrative to the people of Turkey and occupied northern Kurdistan, expecting them to believe that he happened to find a reserve 100 times the quantity of any reserve which has been found so far.
‘Miracle’
In the name of announcing a ‘national miracle,’ the fascist Erdogan regime staged a circus show yesterday, appearing live on all Turkish television channels. For days, Turkey and occupied northern Kurdistan were flooded with uninterrupted psychological warfare crafted by the dictator and spread by his puppets. The ultimate revelation of the ‘national miracle’, as they called it, was immaculately designed. Suspense was built, hundreds of people were interviewed by television channels and millions regained hope for the dire economic situation.
The ‘national miracle,’ which the AKP set up a hefty campaign around was the news that after 8-10 years of investment, Erdogan magically found a well in the Black Sea that holds 320 billion cubic meters of gas. Besides, he claimed, that the drilling work would be finished in only two years – just in time for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Scandal
The miracle being schemed for was not the discovery of more natural resources to be exploited; nor does the discovery carry any significant weight in terms of importance because the gas which has been found is only 7% of Turkey and occupied northern Kurdistan’s annual consumption. Not to mention, there are many scandals under the tip of the iceberg in terms of environment, climate, energy policies and society.
Turkey has drilled 233 thousand meters in 120 wells in 2019 alone and has been drilling across the seas it is surrounded by for over 10 years. Despite all this drilling, Turkey is making only 405 million cubic meters of gas per year. This production is not even one percent of its consumption. The ‘national miracle’ reserve is around 3 billion cubic meters which was supposedly found in three weeks.
Even if the discovery had been made somehow, Turkey has signed agreements with various countries to recieve around 70 billion cubic meters of gas, 20 billion cubic meters more than it needs or more than it can afford. More importantly, the agreements that have been entered into are “take or pay” contracts and the cost of the unconsumed gas in the year of 2019 alone is $2 billion. This would mean that profits from the ‘national miracle’ reserve would barely cover the loss of surplus gas being bought by Turkey.
More importantly, Turkey is trying to increase consumption of natural gas by dotting gas pipelines to every village in Turkey, keeping high-energy consuming places such as shopping centres open despite the pandemic. It is delaying energy efficiency for this reason too. Despite all attempts, the actual consumption of gas marked 45.3 billion cubic meters rather than the expected 52.1 billion cubic meters. This is less than the rates of conspumtion in 2015.
