ÇANAKKALE – Doğan News Agency
Also known as Mt. Ida, the Kaz Mountains play a role in Greek mythology, including the stories of the Trojan War. Yet these days it is the oil reserves that make the news. DHA photo
An oil-exploration firm’s announcement Wednesday that it had found fresh oil reserves in the northwestern province of Çanakkale sparked renewed environmental concerns in an area where extensive gold mining has already created significant controversy.
Merty Energy Petroleum Exploration Inc. began constructing a drilling platform after the discovery, according to Melih Ekrem Görgülü, an engineer working for the company. The drilling work will help produce definitive figures about the amount of oil reserves in the area, he said, adding that the firm hopes to find natural-gas reserves as well.
Merty Energy had been prospecting for untapped oil and natural-gas reserves in the districts of Ezine and Bayramiç for the past two years after getting a license to do so from the Turkish Energy Ministry.
The newly discovered oil reserves lie underneath a farm field owned by 66-year-old Kerime Yıldırım in the village of Ahmetçeli, some 15 kilometers away from downtown Bayramiç.
The firm has already signed a contract with Yıldırım to rent her field.
The region has seen substantial environmental controversy over the granting of licenses to both Turkish and foreign companies to mine for gold in the Kaz Mountains using large amounts of cyanide.
Protests broke out in 2007 over the gold-mining issue, when a new law paved the way for mining activities to go forward in a variety of formerly restricted areas.
(Source: www.hurriyetdailynews.com )