State-owned oil and gas company Turkish Petroleum on Tuesday signed three offshore and two onshore hydrocarbon research and exploration agreements with Pakistani companies in Islamabad, as Türkiye seeks to expand energy sources.
The Pakistani companies involved are Mari Energies, Fatima Group, OGDCL, PPL, Prime and GHPL, according to a statement released by Turkish authorities to media.
Our target is to start works on these fields next year, some at seismic research stage and others direct drilling work," Alparslan Bayraktar, Türkiye's energy and natural resources minister, said in an interview with state-owned Anadolu Agency in Islamabad after the signing ceremony, which also was attended by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Bayraktar added that Turkish Petroleum, better known as TPAO, will operate one of the offshore fields, and Turkish seismic research ships will go to Pakistan next year to explore for oil and gas.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in May that TPAO was continuing talks with Malaysian state energy company Petronas to explore four fields, as well as with Indonesian counterpart Pertamina, with which it had signed a memorandum of understanding in February.
We want to search for more energy resources in Asia, while also wanting to deepen our cooperation with Asian companies for joint exploration in third countries," Bayraktar told Nikkei Asia in October.