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Türkiye is moving closer to deploying two newly acquired drillships purchased for $490 million, with West Draco already reaching the Mediterranean, according to MarineTraffic data.
The vessel departed from Singapore earlier in September, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, and is expected to dock at Tasucu Port in Mersin by the end of September for technical upgrades before joining operations.
The second vessel, West Dorado, remains in Singapore for final preparations.
It is scheduled to set sail soon and is projected to arrive in Türkiye in October, further expanding the country’s capacity for offshore drilling.
The two ships, built in South Korea by Samsung Heavy Industries, were purchased earlier this year from Norway’s Eldorado Drilling for $490 million to join the fleet of state-run Turkish Petroleum (TPAO).
West Draco was delivered in 2014 and West Dorado in 2015.
Both are seventh-generation deepwater drillships capable of drilling to depths of 12,192 meters (40,000 feet).
With the arrival of these vessels, TPAO is enhancing its exploration fleet, which already includes Fatih, Yavuz, Kanuni and Abdulhamid Han.
Since joining the fleet in 2018, Fatih has discovered 540 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Black Sea.
More recently, Abdulhamid Han identified 75 billion cubic meters of gas at the Goktepe-3 field, valued at approximately $30 billion.
The new drillships are expected to support exploration activities not only in the Black Sea and Mediterranean but also in offshore areas near Somalia, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Pakistan.
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