Amid Tensions, Turkey Expands Its Offshore Drilling Fleet - U.S. NEWS / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nov. 17, 2021, at 7:13 a.m.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey is acquiring a new drilling ship to search for natural gas in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, the country’s president announced Wednesday, amid unresolved tensions with Greece and Cyprus over Ankara's offshore energy exploration.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told legislators from his ruling party that Turkey is expanding its fleet of drilling vessels to four, describing the new ship as a high-tech vessel.

Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said on Twitter that the ship would be capable of drilling at a depth of some 3,600 meters (11,800 feet).

Taps and alliances in an era of hard pipeline diplomacy - KATHIMERINI

18.JAN.2020 : 14:02
Stavros Tzimas

Amid growing turmoil over energy issues in the Eastern Mediterranean, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated the TurkStream pipeline in Istanbul earlier this month.

The operation of TurkStream, which will carry Russian natural gas to Central Europe through Turkey, will go some way toward fulfilling Moscow’s goal of reducing gas transit via Ukraine. With the pipeline starting in Novorossiysk, crossing the Black Sea and ending at Kiyikoy in northwestern Turkey, Russia achieves its aim of bypassing Ukraine – with which relations have long been troubled – while Turkey gets to reinforce its role as the controller of the pipeline taps that bring gas to the West.

The pipeline is seen supplying the Turkish market and branching out through Bulgaria and Serbia to send gas to Central Europe. That is why the leaders of the two Balkan countries, Boyko Borisov and Aleksandar Vucic respectively, were present at the event in Istanbul.

Egypt condemns Libya-Turkey Mediterranean agreement - ENTERPRISE

Sunday, 1 December 2019

Egypt, Greece, Cyprus denounce Turkey-Libya agreement to redraw Mediterranean maritime boundaries: The Egyptian government has condemned as illegal the signing of two agreements on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean and security cooperation between Turkey and Libya. 

The agreements — signed between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Libyan PM Fayez Al Serraj in Istanbul on Wednesday — have “no legal effect” since the 2015 Skhirat peace agreement only grants the cabinet the power to sign legally-binding international agreements, Egypt said. The maritime boundaries agreed by Libya and Turkey remain unclear. Greece and Cyprus also denounced the agreement as illegal under international law, the Associated Press reports. The fallout comes amid heightened tensions over oil and gas drilling in the eastern Mediterranean.

Erdogan Crashes the Mediterranean Gas Party - HAARETZ

May 08, 2019 7:16 PM
David Rosenberg 

Last week Turkey sparked another crisis by starting drilling in Cypriot waters. That’s a problem not just for Cyprus but for Israel, too

Even the most avid Erdogan watcher has to work hard up with all the crises the Turkish leader has wrought. This week the No. 1 crisis was election officials caving in to his demand for new elections in Istanbul. There are also the crisis over Turkey’s buying Russian S-400 missiles, the simmering war in the Syrian province of Idlib and, of course, the collapse of the Turkish economy.

If that isn’t enough, add a crisis largely playing out off center stage, but which deserves a lot more attention. That’s because it threatens to upset all the plans Israel, Egypt and Cyprus have for exploiting the vast natural gas resources of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The latest installment of the gas crisis started last Friday when Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said the Turkish seismic research vessel Barbaros Hayrettin Pasa would be drilling for oil and gas “in areas of Turkey’s continental shelf.”

So, finally Turkey is joining the East Med gas party? Not exactly. It’s more like crashing the party: The ship is drilling deep inside Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone.

New pipeline will weaken Turkish-Israeli relationship - ASIA TIMES

JANUARY 12, 2019 12:35 AM (UTC+8)

Joseph Dana

The relationship between Turkey and Israel has never been an easy one to understand. Since formal relations crystalized in 1949, with Turkey becoming one of the first Muslim-majority countries to recognize Israel, both countries have found themselves at arm’s length with the rest of the Middle East.

By the time Israel sent medics to assist victims of Turkey’s tragic earthquake in 1999, the two countries were sharing military technology and bilateral trade was booming. The relationship then took a sour turn, at least rhetorically. A war of words between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached a fever pitch over the last decade and seemingly threatened the foundations of this unique partnership.

Many observers, however, believed the alliance was never really at risk, due to the sheer amount of trade that moves between the two countries.

But now, all that has changed. The discovery of massive natural gas fields off Israel’s northern coast more than a decade ago and subsequent attempts to export this gas to Europe have highlighted the true fault lines in the Turkish-Israeli alliance. Recent events reveal that a fundamental shift in the alliance is undeniably underway.

Turkey starts building land part of Turkish Stream pipeline - TASS

ANKARA, December 13, 2018 /TASS/

Turkey is launching the construction of the onshore part of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline on the territory of the republic.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced this presenting the action plan for the second 100 days of the new cabinet after the country’s transition to the presidential form of government.

"We are launching the construction of the onshore part of the Turkish Stream on our territory," he said as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.

Erdogan also announced plans to complete the implementation of this project "by the end of 2019."

ExxonMobil Commences Drilling Despite Turkey's Verbal Threats - FORBES

Nov 29, 2018, 11:54am

Antonis Antoniou

ExxonMobil XOM +0.56% continues its exploratory offshore drilling in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and — contrary to the Cypriot government’s fears — no Turkish ships appeared on the horizon.

Drillship Stena IceMax entered Block 10 of Cyprus’ EEZ and began drilling a couple of days ago. So far, there has been no actual response from Turkey, even though the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had said that it would “react” to any kind of exploration activity in the Cypriot EEZ.

Turkey has vocally laid claim to parts of Cyprus’ EEZ and even though Block 10 does not fall within one of those areas, Turkey has nevertheless repeatedly warned (or, perhaps, threatened?) that it would react in order to protect the rights of Turkish Cypriots.

But there has been no action by Turkey so far to prevent ExxonMobil’s exploration effort.

TurkStream: Who profits, who loses out? - DW

19.Nov.2018

Nik Martin

As Turkey and Russia inaugurate the sea section of the TurkStream gas pipeline, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can boast of Ankara's new geopolitical influence. DW asks why the pipeline is causing such a fuss.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday marked the completion of the offshore phase of TurkStream, a natural gas pipeline connecting the two countries.

Erdogan told reporters TurkStream would be ready to operate in 2019 after tests are carried out, while Putin said the pipeline would make Turkey a "major European hub." The tie-up with Moscow would "without a doubt influence the geopolitical standing of the Turkish Republic."

The new energy cooperation comes despite Moscow severing ties with Ankara three years ago after a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border.

US State Department backs Cyprus’s right to drill in EEZ - KATHIMERINI / KNEWS

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2018 - 08:42

Hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged all parties engaging in gas exploration activities in the Eastern Mediterranean not to pressure it over Ankara’s own energy plans in the region, the US State Department said Washington “discourages any actions or rhetoric that increase tensions in the region.”

“The US policy on Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone is longstanding and has not changed: the United States recognizes the right of the Republic of Cyprus to develop its resources in its EEZ,” a spokesperson said in response to a question by the Hellas Journal website.

In what was seen as a warning aimed at Greece, Cyprus and the US, Erdogan was quoted as saying on Tuesday, “we tell our friends: Don’t push us, don’t press us.”

Turkey declares oil refinery as special industrial zone - YENI SAFAK / ANADOLU AGENCY

October 20, 2018  11:14 

A presidential decree has declared a newly-opened oil refinery in western Izmir province as the first special industrial zone in Turkey, the Industry and Technology Ministry said Saturday.

Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank said in a statement that the oil refinery will reduce Turkey's foreign trade deficit annually by $1.5 billion.

"The STAR refinery is the biggest real sector investment made at a time in Turkey," he said.

He stressed on the importance of petrochemical investments in terms of high value-added production, employment opportunities and balance of payments.

Greece-Israel-Cyprus summit brought forward - KATHIMERINI

SATURDAY AUGUST 18, 2018, 10:07

VASSILIS NEDOS

This fall’s planned trilateral summit in Jerusalem between Greece, Cyprus and Israel at the foreign ministry level has been brought forward to September 13.

The meeting between Greece’s Nikos Kotzias, Cyprus’s Nikos Christodoulides and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who holds his government’s foreign affairs portfolio, will take place amid increased gas exploration activity in the Eastern Mediterranean and Turkish plans to drill in the region.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly made his intention clear that Turkey will not be left out of the new energy balance in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Ankara says the solution to the decades-old Cyprus problem hinges on the way natural gas reserves off the island’s coast will be exploited.

Meanwhile, the Medusa joint aeronautical exercise between Greece and Egypt is expected to begin in coming days south of the island of Crete.

Elections in Turkey and Gas Discoveries in Egypt Bode Ill for Israel’s Natural-Gas Industry - MOSAIC

JULY 13 2018

While the dictates of economics, geography, and technology suggest that Turkey would be the best possible market for the natural gas beneath Israel’s coastal waters, politics dictate otherwise. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently reelected to the Turkish presidency, has been hostile to the Jewish state since first coming to power, and is unlikely to be eager to set up a gas pipeline between the two countries. But, write Oded Eran and Elai Rettig, further gas extraction is only worthwhile if the gas can be exported, and it is now unclear whether Egypt, the only viable alternative to Turkey, will be any more receptive:

Turkey Faces Ticking Time Bomb With Energy Loans of $51 Billion - BLOOMBERG

July 11, 2018, 7:00 AM GMT+3
Ercan Ersoy and Asli Kandemir

• Some power producers earn less than they owe in debt charges
• Lira’s plunge against dollar has driven up foreign-loan costs

Confronted with a plunging lira, Turkey’s central bank last month urged the general public to borrow in the currency in which they are paid. That warning came too late for the country’s energy companies.

Turkish power producers are emerging as one of the biggest risks to the nation’s banks after they plowed billions of dollars into new power generation, distribution projects and deals over the past 15 years. Now, with the lira depreciating faster than they can raise electricity prices, some utilities earn less per year than what they have to repay in foreign-currency loans, according to the Ankara-based Electricity Producers’ Association.

Their predicament highlights the far-reaching impact of the lira’s 68 percent slump against the dollar since the beginning of 2010 as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan moves his country toward authoritarianism. His grip on the country culminated this week with his swearing in for a five-year term as president with enhanced powers and the appointment of his son-in-law to oversee economic policy.

Turkey announces Med drilling - KATHIMERINI

Saturday, May 12, 2018, 16:08

Turkey will start drilling for oil and gas in the Mediterranean before the end of the summer, according to comments Friday by the country’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak.

The Turkish minister, who is also the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, added that “great efforts” are being made to “ensure there is no letup in this momentum.”

His statements come as no surprise in Greece as Ankara has already purchased a drillship. However, Albayrak’s comments are also being taken with a grain of salt, given that the neighboring country is heading for elections on June 24.

Turkey has maintained it will not allow the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus to drill for gas in its exclusive economic zone, saying the Turkish Cypriots must also be included in the process. Furthermore, it claims that parts of the island’s EEZ are disputed, and it remains to be seen where exactly Turkey plans to drill in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Fraying Israel-Turkey Ties Threaten Planned Gas Venture - BLOOMBERG

February 5, 2018, 5:49 PM GMT+2Yaacov Benmeleh and David Wainer

• Israeli companies said to shift deal focus to Egypt, Europe
• Erdogan’s public condemnations have angered Israeli officials

A U.S.-backed initiative to build an undersea natural gas pipeline between Israel and Turkey looks increasingly troubled as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan escalates his public denunciations of the Jewish state.

Israel has shifted its priorities to exporting to Egypt and other markets because of the growing discord with Turkey, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue is sensitive. Efforts to reach governmental understandings with Turkey continue but the pace of talks has fallen off sharply, one of them said.

Turkey’s Syria campaign unlikely to affect regional energy projects - NEW EUROPE

JANUARY 29, 2018, 10:44
Kostis Geropoulos

East Med gas pipeline from Cyprus to Greece and onto Europe bypassing Turkey has the less political risk, leading regional expert says

ATHENS – As Turkey moves forward with ‘Operation Olive Branch’ with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly saying that Ankara is prepared to take its fight against Kurdish forces in northern Syria as far as Iraq, a leading regional analyst told New Europe that the latest military campaign is not likely to have any direct effect on energy projects.

Asked if that military operation would have any effect on long-term projects like the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Saleh Jallad of the Consolidated Contractors Company and publisher of the Middle East Economic Survey “MEES” said, “No, these are a little bit in a way independent. TAP, for instance, it has to do with influence but indirect ways, not direct with Turkey. So it will continue to go and it’s a good project, in my opinion, because it could supply Europe… and Greece will also benefit from this project”.

Jallad stressed that Turkey also wants to diversify its energy resources because the majority of its imports are from Russia.

Russian Gas Deliveries to Turkey Soar in September - MOSCOW TIMES / BNE INTELLINEWS

Sep 29, 2017 — 15:24
Ben Aris

Putin’s ultimate goal seems to be to win over Turkey from the West's sphere of influence

Russo-Turkish relations are back in rude health – almost. And nowhere is that clearer than in Russian gas deliveries to Turkey. They have soared in the past month.

Gazprom will set a record for natural gas deliveries to Turkey this year with deliveries having already surged 48 percent in September from a year earlier, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told reporters on Sept. 28.

"We are happy that deliveries of gas to Turkey are growing this year. Comparing the period from Jan. 1 to date with the like period of 2016, supplies to the Turkish market rose 24.3 percent," Miller was cited by the state-run news agency TASS as saying. "It means Gazprom will probably set an all-time high record of gas supplies to the market of Turkey as of 2017 year-end."

Turkish tantrums achieve nothing - UPSTREAM ONLINE

London, 1 Sep 2017 07:35 GMT

Nassir Shirkhani

Attempting to disrupt a drilling campaign off Cyprus with military threats reveals how isolated President Erdogan has become

IT IS deja-vu again off Cyprus. Turkey is once more flexing its military muscles in an apparent attempt to scare Cyprus into halting exploratory drilling off the divided Mediterranean island.

The latest sabre rattling relates to drilling in offshore Block 11 by the drillship West Capella on behalf of France’s Total and Italy’s Eni.

Ankara was quick to dispatch two frigates and a submarine to shadow the vessel before upping the ante last week by issuing two marine advisories (Navtex) reserving access to parts of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Turkey’s massive gas pipeline a double-edged sword for Europe - THE IRISH TIMES

22.7.2017
Stephen Starr

The €11bn TurkStream gas project will put Turkey and Russia in a position of power

For those who saw it coming, the sight of a massive, 382-metre-long ship passing through Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait in May said a lot about Turkey’s plans to influence Europe’s access to new natural gas supplies.

The world’s largest vessel by displacement, Pioneering Spirit comes complete with offices, accommodation for 571 people and a €2.6 billion price tag. Earlier this summer it journeyed from the North Sea – where it lifted and removed an entire 24,500-tonne decommissioned oil platform, a record engineering feat – south and then east around the European continent, and through Istanbul.

Turkey Lobbying Israel to Push Cyprus on Approving Gas Pipeline - BLOOMBERG

July 20, 2017, 3:25 PM GMT+3
Selcan Hacaoglu

• Officials of both nations discussed gas cooperation last week
• Negotiations over creating a new federal Cyprus have collapsed

Turkey wants Israel to use its clout to push Cyprus into allowing a pipeline to pass through its waters so the region’s natural gas can be exported to Europe.

“Israel, as a dominant force in the region, could push Cyprus to agree to a compromise deal on the drilling of gas and construction of an export gas pipeline via Turkey” to the benefit of all sides, said Reha Denemec, an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Officials from both countries discussed possible cooperation on gas during a conference last week in Istanbul, he said. Israel’s Energy Ministry had no immediate comment.

Israel and Turkey patched up ties recently after years of diplomatic estrangement and are eager to advance an energy deal that would help transform Israel into a gas exporter and bolster Turkey as a key gas portal for European states. One key obstacle has been Turkey’s conflict with Cyprus, which has been divided since 1974, with northern Cyprus controlled by a self-declared state supported by Turkey. The latest round of United Nations-sponsored reunification talks faltered earlier this month.