Turkish ship to begin offshore drilling in Somalia this week

TRABZON

Türkiye’s drillship Çağrı Bey will arrive in Somalia on April 10 to begin the country’s first offshore drilling operation in the Horn of Africa nation, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has announced.

“I am traveling to Somalia in a few days. Our Çağrı Bey vessel arrives there on Friday [April 10]. With the Çağrı Bey, we will begin the first offshore drilling in Somalia,” Bayraktar said at an event in the northern province of Trabzon on April 4.

“The oil we discover there could make a major contribution to Somalia, East Africa and, hopefully, our country as well,” he added.

Türkiye signed an energy exploration agreement with Somalia in 2024 as part of efforts to diversify its energy sources and reduce reliance on imports, while expanding exploration activities both domestically and abroad.

Ankara is a key player in Somalia, where several countries are competing for influence in a strategically located state along the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, a gateway to the Red Sea.

The Çağrı Bey departed for Somalia in February and is expected to drill in areas previously surveyed by the seismic research vessel Oruç Reis. The vessel will become Türkiye’s first drillship to operate abroad after Oruç Reis.

Türkiye’s drilling campaign has largely focused on the Sakarya Gas Field in the country’s north, where the country made its largest-ever natural gas discovery in 2020. The find, made by the Fatih drillship and estimated at around 720 billion cubic meters, was also the world’s largest offshore gas discovery that year.