Sirnak

Sirnak exists because oil exists beneath its mountains. This small southeastern province bordering the Kurdistan Region transformed overnight in December 2022 when President Erdogan announced the Gabar field discovery—an estimated 1 billion barrels, Turkey's largest onshore oil find. A region previously defined by border tensions became the nation's top oil producer.

The Gabar field now pumps 70,000 barrels daily, rising toward a planned 100,000. In 2024, the province produced 16.37 million barrels of crude—catapulting Sirnak from obscurity to energy prominence. Three thousand jobs materialized where few existed before. A reverse migration began: families who had left for Adana, Ankara, Mersin, and Istanbul are building homes, investing, and returning to a province redefining itself.

The geography that created Sirnak's oil also complicates its extraction. The province borders Iraq, where the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline—600 miles of steel carrying 450,000 barrels daily—was halted in March 2023 after Turkey was ordered to pay Iraq $1.5 billion for unauthorized Kurdish exports. The pipeline restarted in September 2025, finally allowing Kurdish crude to reach Ceyhan and European markets seeking alternatives to Russian supply.

By 2026, Sirnak's trajectory bifurcates: domestic oil production scales while pipeline politics shift. Turkey's energy independence narrative depends on Gabar's output expanding. But the province also sits at the intersection of Turkish, Kurdish, and Iraqi interests—the same geopolitical faultlines that shut the pipeline for two and a half years. Whether Sirnak becomes Turkey's Permian Basin or remains hostage to border politics determines everything that follows.