Black Sea Gas is the Property of the Public
It Should Be Used as Ordered by Islam

News:

Black Sea gas, which was discovered in the Sakarya gas field and is one of the most important energy projects in the history of Turkey, was brought ashore for the first time at the Filyos Natural Gas Processing Plant. The natural gas produced in the first phase of the project, in which more than 8 thousand personnel work on land and 2 thousand at sea, was commissioned with the participation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan, in his speech at the "Black Sea Gas Commissioning Ceremony", said that with this project, not only the country's foreign dependence on natural gas is significantly reduced, but also Filyos and Zonguldak region are turned into an important energy, technology, logistics base. (TRT News, 20/04/2023)

Comment:

The riches that Allah (swt) has bestowed on the lands of the Islamic Ummah do not end with counting. The Black Sea gas discovered in the Sakarya gas field is one of these riches. Therefore, since it is an Islamic resource, the discovery of these riches is very important and valuable, regardless of whether it is on the territory of Turkey, at sea or on land. Because energy means power and wealth. As mentioned in his speech, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people. ..." Energy resources are very important riches that make states that have energy superior to other states, especially those that are hostile.

It should also be emphasized that it is an important achievement that Turkey has achieved this in 3 years, while the major energy companies in the world have made the discovered gas reserves usable only in 5-6 years. It is necessary to share this success with the public in a transparent and understandable way. This way, any kind of manipulations are prevented.

Another issue is whether the amount of reserves discovered will be sufficient to meet Turkey's gas needs. It was announced earlier that the amount of gas discovered by the government authorities had reached a total of 710 billion cubic meters. Again, according to the statements of the authorities, 10 million cubic meters of gas per day and 3.5 billion cubic meters per year will be extracted from the Black Sea reserve. Considering that this rate will increase by 3-4 times with the newly drilled wells, it means extracting 15 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Turkey's gas consumption is around 60 billion cubic meters per year. According to the Energy Market Supervisory Board (EMRA) data, Turkey imported approximately 58.704 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2021. Of this, 44.87 percent was taken from Russia, while the remaining amount was taken from Iran, Azerbaijan and Algeria. In the same way, according to the EMRA's data, Turkey consumed 59 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2021. According to this account, when the Black Sea gas reaches full capacity, it can meet only 25% of our annual needs. Of course, it's much better than none at all. But in this case, saying that the Black Sea gas will be exported to the leading countries does not mean anything other than making populism before the elections.

Although we say “good job” to Black Sea gas, these figures show that we need to work for new gas discoveries because it is necessary to minimize energy imports in order to gain political and economic independence.

What is more important than all these is to have an ideology that will use the wealth of the Ummah correctly and efficiently. Undoubtedly, that ideology is Islam. As Turkey and other Muslim countries, we can only protect our wealth and develop by applying the Islamic ideology. Only the Islamic ideology can restore all our wealth, old and new, stolen by the colonialist infidels.

According to Islamic ideology, energy resources are the wealth belonging to the public; in other words, to the Ummah. It is never permissible for these fortunes to be transferred to capitalist companies and for international foreign companies to share in these reserves because the right to use these fortunes belongs to the public. These fortunes should be free not only at election time, but at all times. Managers do not have the right to save on these fortunes. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said:

«الْمُسْلِمُونَ شُرَكَاءُ فِي ثَلَاثٍ فِي الْكَلَأِ وَالْمَاءِ وَالنَّارِ»

“Muslims have in common three things: they are water, pasture and fire.” (Abu Dawud)

Therefore, the task of the rulers is not to make the fortunes that already belong to the public into electoral materials, but to use them in the way that Islam dictates, to try to extract new reserves until all the needs of the people are met.

In addition, search efforts should be accelerated not only in the Black Sea, but also in the Mediterranean. It is our historical right to have a high amount of proven oil and natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean. In order to avoid political tensions with the countries of the region, the decelerated exploration activities should be restarted and oil and natural gas exploration activities should be carried out in international waters on the continental shelf of both Turkey and Cyprus. Deceleration of oil and natural gas exploration activities should be carried out. At this point, the only thing that needs to be taken into account is the interest of the Muslim people, not the United States or Europe.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Muhammad Emin Yildirim