Turkey Signed Deals With Exxon Mobil and EOG Resources

Other foreign firms, including Gazprom (Russia), ONGC (India), BP (UK) and Royal Dutch Shell (Holland/UK), are negotiating with TPAO with a view to joint exploration in Iraq, TPAO's CEO Mehmet Uysal reported.

The key deal at this stage is a memorandum of understanding signed with EOG. Together with TPAO, EOG will seek oil and gas in two areas of Anatolia and the Thrace Basin.

While no estimates of the size of the fields have been made, TPAO's consultant geophysicist Atilla Aydemir said he hopes "in the future this is going to be very important."

The Exxon deal is only in its initial stages, although it follows an agreement signed later last year for Exxon's subsidiary, ExxonMobil Exploration, to explore two large deepwater blocs off the Turkish coastline. The area in question covers some seven million acres (29,500 square kilometers) of the Black Sea.

ExxonMobil is looking forward "to bringing our global deepwater experience to this prospective unexplored area," said Tim Cejka, president of ExxonMobil Exploration.

TPAO is looking to move quickly, or to embark on "an aggressive exploration program," as Uysal put it. The company believes there could be reserves of some 10 billion barrels of oil and 1.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas offshore.

Author: Ksenia Kochneva