Erdogan announces new Gabar oil output as COP31 opens in Antalya

Gabar expansion announced on opening day

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a post on X on the evening of 9 November that new wells would lift output at the Gabar oil field by 30%. He added that daily production would pass 100,000 barrels (about 159 litres each) in the second half of 2027, and said two further oil fields in the southeast were being discovered and developed, with Gabar one of them. The post came on the first day of the two-week UN climate conference in Antalya, where a little over 190 states are discussing a gradual exit from oil, gas and coal. At the opening, the conference presidency called for more speed and determination, while Turkey again backed the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris agreement.

Gabar reserves and Turkey's energy dependence

Gabar, in Şırnak province near the Iraqi and Syrian borders, had estimated reserves of 150 million barrels announced in 2022. At a production rate of 120,000 barrels a day, Erdogan said, the field would bring the economy 4.4 billion US dollars a year. Turkey depends almost entirely on energy imports, using about 1 million barrels of oil a day, roughly 90% of which is imported. Ankara aims to cut daily oil demand by around 30% by 2040, partly through investments of 500 billion US dollars in electrification.

Urgewald's database and the TPAO case

Urgewald's updated Global Oil & Gas Exit List, prepared for the conference, covers about 1,900 companies that produce oil and gas or develop new infrastructure for them. Its analyst Signe Moe says 96% of those producers plan to expand, which she argues adds greenhouse gas emissions and harms people living near extraction sites. The group singles out Turkey's state company TPAO, which it says doubled spending on the search for new oil and gas deposits over the past five years. Urgewald also says TPAO wants to bring close to 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent into production in the coming years. Moe argued that Turkey's planned expansion says a great deal about the credibility of this year's host.

State-owned producers lead expansion plans

According to the database, state-owned or partly state-owned oil and gas companies have the widest expansion plans for the next one to seven years. QatarEnergy plans to bring 27.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent into production, while Saudi Aramco plans 16.8 billion. The Russian company Gazprom and Adnoc of the United Arab Emirates follow in the ranking. The Austrian partly state-owned group OMV is also expanding.

QatarEnergy27.5

Saudi Aramco16.8

QatarEnergy

27.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent

Saudi Aramco

16.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent

Data from the article text

Commitments and calls for a binding roadmap

Around 200 countries that meet each year for the UN climate conference agreed in Dubai three years ago to move away gradually from coal, oil and gas. The International Energy Agency calculated in 2021 that reaching net zero by 2050 would effectively rule out new investment in oil, gas and coal projects. Against that backdrop, Urgewald cites Turkey's fossil expansion as an example of what it calls fossil ignorance. The environmental group BUND has demanded that the conference adopt a binding and concrete roadmap for a global exit from gas, oil and coal.