Economy
Over 150 oil exploration wells to be drilled this year: Minister
ANKARA
A total of 153 oil exploration wells will be drilled this year, mainly in the southeastern city of Şırnak’s Gabar region, as well as in Van, Diyarbakır and along the northern Türkiye-Syria border, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said.
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Türkiye’s daily oil production reached 132,000 barrels by the beginning of March 2025, as the country expands its energy operations with new wells and equipment to increase domestic production and meet growing demand, the minister told state-run Anadolu Agency.
Türkiye made a historic oil discovery in Gabar in 2021. Currently, production from the 95 wells has reached 78,000 barrels, Bayraktar revealed.
The increased output is in line with Türkiye’s goal of becoming energy-independent, as exploration and production efforts gain momentum through domestic resources.
Bayraktar explained that following the oil discovery in Gabar, efforts were intensified to boost production, which now contributes $2 billion annually to Türkiye’s economy.
Bayraktar also highlighted Türkiye’s significant contribution to its natural gas supply security with the discovery of the Sakarya Gas Field in the Black Sea in 2020.
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Production began just 32 months after the natural gas discovery, Bayraktar noted. “Türkiye achieved tremendous success in transporting gas from the discovery site to the mainland,” he said.
Currently, 7 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas is produced daily from the Sakarya Gas Field, enough to meet the gas needs of approximately 3 million households, he added.
The country aims to increase the field’s daily gas production capacity to 9.5 mcm by the end of March.
Türkiye expanded its fleet with a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit last September, which will be used to increase the field’s natural gas production capacity.
Bayraktar noted that the FPSO, currently undergoing maintenance in the province of Çanakkale, will be sent to Filyos in the Black Sea region in May.
By the second half of 2026, the unit will be transported to the natural gas field in the Black Sea to process an additional 10 mcm of natural gas daily for 20 years, he explained.
The FSPO will boost production from the Sakarya field to 20 mcm by mid-2026. “This amount meets the daily natural gas needs of 8.5 million households,” Bayraktar said.
Through these efforts, Türkiye aims to meet the natural gas needs of all households with gas produced from the Sakarya Gas Field by 2028, he underlined.
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Within the scope of the 2025 Investment Program, a total of 259 billion Turkish liras will be invested in the energy sector.
About 140.7 billion liras will be allocated for oil and natural gas exploration and production activities, while 45.8 billion liras will be used for natural gas storage and transmission infrastructure.
STOCKHOLM
Sweden’s government said it will hold talks with food producers and distributers as a consumer movement over soaring costs in the Nordic country gains traction.
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Annual food price inflation in Sweden hit its highest rate in two years in February at 3.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the independent watchdog site Matpriskollen (The Food Price Checker) found in January that prices in Swedish grocery stores had risen by 19.1 percent over two years.
“In view of the rapid price developments in the first months of the year and the rising prices in recent years, the Minister of Finance and Rural Affairs Minister will invite selected actors from the food supply chain for talks,” the government said in a statement.
The aim of the talks is to “listen to the industry’s assessment of the situation and work together to lower prices for customers,” it added.
The move comes as a viral online campaign calling for a boycott of major grocery stores next week has picked up speed.
One of the campaigners, Annika Morina, told newspaper Aftonbladet that she reached her breaking point buying tomato puree on Valentine’s Day.
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“It had gone up 50 percent. I’ve seen these kinds of boycotts in countries in the Balkans and felt: ‘Why don’t things like that happen in Sweden?’,” she said.
She posted a video to TikTok calling for the boycott which has received tens of thousands of views and according to Aftonbladet thousands are expected to join the boycott.
Consumers in Croatia frustrated by soaring prices massively joined two boycott calls in January, sending daily sales down by over 40 percent.
LONDON
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (C) meets with defence suppliers at RAF Northolt on March 6, 2025 in Ruislip, west of London. Reeves met with UK defence suppliers to Ukraine.
The British government said on March 14 that it would increase its export credit facilities for weapons manufacturers by two billion pounds ($2.6 billion) to boost overseas sales.
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The new funds “will see billions of pounds unlocked for U.K. defence companies that export overseas, driving economic growth and creating jobs across the U.K.,” it said in a statement.
Already the U.K. Export Finance agency has a lending capacity of eight billion pounds specifically for government clients of defence contractors, bringing the new total to 10 billion pounds.
Like other countries across Europe, Britain is racing to beef up its military production capabilities in the face of an expansionist Russia, pressure on European members of NATO to spend more on defence, and questions over President Donald Trump’s commitment to U.S. protection of Europe.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged ahead of a White House visit in February to boost defence spending to 2.5 percent of the economy by 2027, with the aim of hiking it to 3.0 percent in the next parliament.
“The world is changing, and we must bring about a new era of security and renewal that protects working people and keeps our country safe,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said in the statement.
ANKARA
The services production index increased by 6 percent on an annual basis in January, gathering pace from the previous month’s 2.6 percent rise, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed on March 14.
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The monthly increase in the index also quickened from 1.3 percent in December to 2.5 percent in January.
The index for transportation and storage services increased by 3.2 percent year-on-year but declined by 0.5 percent month-on-month.
Accommodation and food services rose 9.6 percent from a year ago and 0.5 percent compared to the previous month, the statistics authority said.
The annual and monthly increases in the index for information and communication services were 9.9 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively.
Real estate services rose 8.9 percent year-on-year, according to TÜİK data.
The prevalent price-setting behavior in the services sector leads to significant inertia and causes the impact of shocks on inflation to extend over a long time period, the Central Bank said in the summary of the March 6 Monetary Policy Committee meeting released on March 13.
Services inflation remains higher than goods inflation, it said, adding that having slowed down in the final quarter of 2024, services inflation increased in January due to the effects of items with time-dependent pricing.
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