By Bosphorus News Energy Desk
Türkiye's state oil company pumped more crude from a single southeastern field than the rest of the country's domestic production combined, according to figures released by the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry.
Domestic oil production reached 23.1 million barrels in the first half of 2026, the ministry said, with state-run Türkiye Petrolleri (TPAO) accounting for 21.8 million barrels of that total. Gabar, the southeastern field near the Iraqi border where Türkiye has drilled extensively since 2020, supplied 60 percent of total output on its own.
Domestic natural gas production reached 1.641 billion cubic meters over the same period, of which TPAO produced 1.608 billion cubic meters and private firms the remaining 33 million. The Sakarya Gas Field in the Black Sea accounted for 92 percent of total gas output.
Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said new wells at Gabar would keep lifting oil production while Black Sea gas output is set to double this year. "Our domestic oil and natural gas production will continue to increase," he said. That doubling depends on the Osman Gazi floating production platform, which Bosphorus News reported is now scheduled to leave Filyos Port at the end of September for a fourth-quarter start at Sakarya, a timeline pushed back from the mid-2026 date officials gave in December.
Bayraktar framed the domestic figures as one part of a wider push he described as achieving full energy independence, pointing to drilling underway in Somalia and two licenses Türkiye has secured in Libya, one offshore and one onshore. He also cited TPAO's stake in Kirkuk-area oil fields in northern Iraq, which officials estimate hold more than 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent in reserve potential. "Türkiye is now a global player in energy, both searching for and producing resources at home and abroad," he said. Bosphorus News detailed the scale of that overseas expansion last week, reporting that TPAO is targeting nearly 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2028 across projects spanning Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Oman and Europe, up from roughly 330,000 boe/d today.
Sources: Türkiye's Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Bosphorus News review and reporting.