Altinakar-Basakli

Exploration and production work in the Diyarbakır province of the south-eastern Anatolian Region has for the most part centred on Palaeozoic and Cretaceous petroleum systems. Over the past decade, national and foreign companies have considered the Diyarbakır province a high-return market with huge potential in exploration license areas, including in the Palaeozoic conventional petroleum system, offering remarkable opportunities in Türkiye.

Although the discovered accumulations until now have been smaller by size compared to most of the similar fields in the Middle East, about 80% of the petroleum in Southeast Türkiye is produced from Upper Cretaceous carbonates. In other parts of Southeast Türkiye, within the Diyarbakır region, the early Silurian sequence includes important source horizons, and oil discoveries have been made in Upper Ordovician Bedinan sandstone (Palaeozoic petroleum system).

The Altinakar-Basakli production lease is also situated within the foreland belt of SE Anatolian Basin and covers an area of 15,281 hectares. 14-degree API oil in Cretaceous Mardin Group carbonate was discovered by the Altinakar-1 Well, in 2011 and 17,009 bbls oil was produced until August 2012. Altinakar-1 Well was then deepened in 2012 and 41 API oil was discovered from the Ordovician Bedinan sandstones. Current interpretations indicate that the Altinakar-1 Well is located on the flank of structure but, having tested commercial oil in both potential reservoirs gives very encouraging results for future seismic and drilling to commence in this promising license. AME also has drilled several wells (Altınakar-2, Altınakar-3, Altınakar-4 and Başaklı-1) with positive results in the production lease.