Valeura Sees Yet Another Turkish Gas Price Increase
Valeura Energy, a Canadian junior producer developing a significant unconventional gas project in Turkey’s Thrace Basin, said September 5 it had been advised that Botas, the Turkish gas grid operator, had implemented yet another price increase to industrial and commercial customers.
The 14% increase took effect September 1 and is the fourth this year, bringing the year-to-date increase to 63%, on a compounded basis. Gas prices to Turkish consumers are denominated in Turkish lira, and the frequent and ongoing reference price increases result in exchange rate-adjusted prices that remain broadly in line with prevailing European gas prices and maintain Valeura’s realised prices in the C$7/’000 ft3 range.
“This ongoing trend of gas price corrections helps to ensure the long-term value of our basin centered gas accumulation (BCGA),” Valeura CEO Sean Guest said. “Our net 10.1 trillion ft3 of mean unrisked prospective resources remain just as valuable as when we first announced it in February 2018, and we are expecting material data points in the coming months as our appraisal operations start to de-risk the play.”
At its Yamalik-1 discovery well, Valeura has drilled through all the plugs set when the well was first fracked in late 2017 and earlier this year and has cleaned out the entire wellbore. Production tubing will now be set prior to long-term production testing into Valeura’s existing gas gathering infrastructure in the Thrace Basin.
At the Inanli-1 appraisal location, site construction is continuing, ahead of the anticipated arrival of the KCA Duetag drilling rig in the coming weeks. Valeura expects to spud Inanli-1 around the end of September, and initial results are expected near the end of the year.