TotalEnergies and TPAO sign exploration cooperation agreement
TotalEnergies and Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı (TPAO) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on exploration opportunities.
The agreement establishes a framework for technical collaboration between the two companies, including a joint assessment of exploration opportunities in the Black Sea region of Türkiye as well as potential prospects internationally.
The partnership comes as TPAO continues to aggressively expand its presence in the Black Sea, where it has delivered Turkey’s most significant hydrocarbon discoveries in recent years. In 2020, TPAO announced the giant Tuna-1 (later renamed Sakarya) gas discovery in the western Black Sea, one of the largest offshore gas finds in the region.
Phase 1 production from Sakarya began in 2023, with output expected to ramp up significantly in the coming years. Additional success followed in 2025 with the Göktepe-3 discovery, estimated at 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
TPAO currently operates a fleet of ad vanced drillships—including Fatih, Yavuz, Kanuni, and Abdülhamid Han—in the Black Sea and has indicated plans for up to six exploration wells in 2026 as part of Türkiye’s broader push to reduce energy imports and double domestic gas output.
About the Author
Bruce Beaubouef
Managing Editor
Bruce Beaubouef is Managing Editor for Offshore magazine. In that capacity, he plans and oversees content for the magazine; writes features on technologies and trends for the magazine; writes news updates for the website; creates and moderates topical webinars; and creates videos that focus on offshore oil and gas and renewable energies. Beaubouef has been in the oil and gas trade media for 25 years, starting out as Editor of Hart’s Pipeline Digest in 1998. From there, he went on to serve as Associate Editor for Pipe Line and Gas Industry for Gulf Publishing for four years before rejoining Hart Publications as Editor of PipeLine and Gas Technology in 2003. He joined Offshore magazine as Managing Editor in 2010, at that time owned by PennWell Corp. Beaubouef earned his Ph.D. at the University of Houston in 1997, and his dissertation was published in book form by Texas A&M University Press in September 2007 as The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: U.S. Energy Security and Oil Politics, 1975-2005.