Hydrocarbon Exploration Activities and Play-Prospects of the Turkish Black Sea

The Black sea has an area of 436,400 km2 and most of this area is deep water with a maximum depth 2,200 m. 2/5th of this area is located within economic zone of Turkey so called Turkish Black Sea. Even though, the shelfal part of the Black Sea has been lightly explored; the deep water part of it is a frontier basin and has been barely scratched. The majority of the Turkish offshore Black Sea lies within ultra deep-water realm. Exploration efforts began in the early 1990’s by means of reconnaissance hydrocarbon exploration and flourished after 2002. These hydrocarbon exploration activities mainly consist of good quality exploration seismic (2D and 3D), gravity-magnetic, long offset seismic, onshore geological fieldwork. In total more than 70.000 km 2D, 11.000 km2 3D seismic have been acquired and 3 deep water wells two of them at the westernmost part one of them easternmost part have been drilled since 1999 (Figure-1). Most of these activities have been held by Turkish Petroleum Corporation, TPAO.