Turkey’s fourth offshore drilling vessel, Cobalt Explorer, will soon arrive from South Korea.
The drilling ship left South Korea on March 7 and March 12, 2022, according to tracking services, slowly moving in the South China Sea on a southwesterly course.
Turkish state oil and gas company TPAO bought Cobalt Explorer from South Korean Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in November 2021.
Note that TPAO has deployed the entire Fatih, Kanuni and Yavuz drilling fleet to search for natural gas in the Black Sea.
In 2021, the drilling ship Fatih discovered 135 bcm of gas reserves at the Sakarya field, in addition to the discovery in August 2020, bringing natural gas reserves to 400 bcm.
Turkey is working to start production by 2023, which will change its energy economy and reduce its dependence on imported gas. This is probably why the Turkish authorities are not up to sanctions against the Russian Federation. The Cobalt Explorer mobilization will also be in the area, but probably under a different, more appropriate name for Turkey.
