Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar stated, “Gabar has become Turkey’s oil base. Thankfully, we have reached a production exceeding 80 thousand barrels per day as of today. We have achieved this production figure in 99 wells.” Minister Bayraktar arrived in Şırnak at the area where the Koca Yusuf Tower in the Martyr Aybüke Yalçın (ŞAY) Bülent Sadioğlu-8 Field on Gabar Mountain with 14 university students studying mining, oil, energy, and geological engineering in Istanbul and Ankara. He received a briefing from TPAO General Manager Ahmet Türkoğlu and TPAO Şırnak Regional Manager Mehmet Oğuz Şahin and conducted inspections in the field.

Minister Bayraktar stated in his statement to journalists that they were at a new production location in the Bülent Sadioğlu field, one of the new fields in Gabar as they approached the end of the Ramadan month. Emphasizing that the tower named Koca Yusuf is a vivid example of the most important implementation objectives of the national energy and mineral policy, Bayraktar continued, “At this field, in this location, we are conducting drilling operations with a very powerful tower that we call Koca Yusuf. The Gabar discovery, which has been followed with great interest by our nation since September 2021, has aroused great excitement throughout our country; a very important project, a very important oil discovery. The largest oil discovery in the history of the Republic. We have now thankfully reached a production exceeding 80 thousand barrels per day as of today in a very short time. We have achieved this production figure in 99 wells. Additionally, we are producing very high-quality oil in these fields. The Gabar field currently means an economic size of approximately 2.3 billion dollars for us annually, a significant gain.”

Pointing out that this region has always been associated with terrorism in the past, Bayraktar stated that they are now advancing with the goal of a terrorism-free Turkey. Emphasizing that as they liberated this region from terrorism, their work has accelerated and they have started to reap the results, Bayraktar indicated that Gabar has a very high potential. Minister Bayraktar noted, “We believe that we will hopefully further increase these 80 thousand barrels. We had organized a program in memory of our martyr teacher Aybüke Yalçın on November 24th Teachers’ Day. Our production was 57 thousand barrels that day. Today we have reached 80 thousand barrels. We are continuing to develop these fields. We believe that Gabar has become Turkey’s oil base. It will hopefully continue to grow. We have over 3,200 employees working in these mountains today.”