Turkey has announced discovery of a major gold deposit in Sogut city holding an estimated 3.5 million ounces (99 tonnes) of the precious metal valued at around $6 billion, the Anadolu state news agency reported on Tuesday.
Söğüt city is notable as the founding location and first capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1335. Söğüt is a town and district in Bilecik Province, Turkey. It is located in the Marmara region in the north-west of the country. Ertugrul Gazi tomb is also located in Sogut.
According to the current prices, the gold reserve's value is around $6 billion, Gubretas chairman Fahrettin Poyraz told Anadolu Agency. Some 3.5 million ounce of gold was found in a mine site belonging to the fertilizer producer Gubretas in the Marmara region of Turkey, the head of firm revealed on Tuesday.
The major discovery in Sogut (read: Söğüt) city was reported by Fahrettin Poyraz, the head the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Turkey and the Gubretas fertiliser production firm. Gubretas is a subsidiary company of Turkey's Agricultural Credit Cooperative.
"We are talking about a value close to six billion dollars. Within two years, we will extract the first gold and bring value to the Turkish economy," Poyraz told Anadolu. Poyraz asserted that the new discovery is among top five gold mines globally.
As part of the gold researching process, Gubretas established a mining company, Maden AS. The gold will be extracted by Maden AS within two years, he added.
Poyraz said his Gubretas fertiliser producer won control of the site from another company in a 2019 court decision and would develop the find on its own.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez said in September that Turkey broke a record last year by producing 38 tonnes of gold.
"Our target for the next five years is to reach an annual 100 tonnes of gold production," he said at the time.
Söğüt was a Seljuk Turkish tribe in western Anatolia that later gave birth to the Ottoman Empire. It was a small tribe that extended from the Kayi branch of the Oghuz Turks who settled in Anatolia around the 12th-13th centuries.
Söğüt was the birthplace of Sultan Osman I. It was conquered by Ertuğrul for the Anatolian Seljuks from the Nicean Empire in 1231.