Subsea7 has landed a major1 contract with the Turkish Petroleum Offshore Technology Center (TP-OTC). The project was awarded for the development of phase 3 of the Sakarya field development in the Black Sea, offshore Türkiye.
There has been much excitement in recent days among those who know nothing much worth knowing about the issue that the long-running ban on oil sales from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) to Turkey may be lifted soon. Supposedly, the government of the Erbil-based semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan (the KRG) and the Baghdad-based Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) have agreed on a new mechanism for oil exports from the Kurdistan Region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Libya’s eastern parliament is poised to let Turkey explore for energy in the North African nation’s waters, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be a dramatic about-face that’s the latest sign of warming ties between Ankara and the region.
The potential renegotiation is the latest step in the saga that started in March 2023, when Turkey closed the link after an arbitration court ordered the country to pay Iraq $1.5 billion over unauthorized exports. Numerous attempts to restart shipments have since failed – including due to disagreements between Iraq, its semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and companies operating in the area.
The original agreement, first inked in 1973, concerns the pipeline carrying oil from the semi-autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. Flows along the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which has a capacity for 1.6 million barrels daily, have now been suspended for two years amid a financial dispute between Ankara and Baghdad.
Turkey has discovered 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas worth $30 billion dollars in the Black Sea, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Hungary and Slovakia are currently getting their Russian natural gas supply via the TurkStream pipeline that runs under the Black Sea to Turkey and then on to Eastern Europe. According to one Bulgarian energy analyst from the progressive think-tank Center for the Study of Democracy, the existence of this pipeline can prolong the European Union’s reliance on Russian gas. Indeed, it has already increased Russian gas imports to Central and Southeastern Europe from some 30% back in 2021 to over 50% as of last year, Martin Vladimirov wrote in an op-ed for Reuters.
Turkey is currently in talks to explore for oil and gas in Bulgaria, with similar plans for exploration in Iraq and Libya, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has revealed. According to the minister, state-owned energy company Turkiye Petrolleri AO (TPAO) will sign an agreement with an unnamed foreign partner within the next month to conduct exploration in Bulgaria’s section of the Black Sea.
While both countries appear aligned on their strategic goals, several challenges persist. Chief among them is the unresolved dispute over the Iraq–Türkiye Pipeline (ITP), which has halted Iraqi oil exports to Türkiye for over two years due to diplomatic and financial disagreements. The ongoing dispute between Baghdad and the KRG over revenue sharing and control of oil resources adds further complexity. International oil and gas companies operating in the KRG region also withhold cooperation until outstanding fiscal and contractual issues are addressed.
The two countries this week signed an agreement at the 2025 Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum in Islamabad to jointly bid on 40 offshore blocks. A bidding round for the granting of exploration licenses for the blocks, located in the Makran and Indus basins, was announced by the Pakistan government in February.