Somalia | Oil, Gas & other Exploration News

[Ras Siyan]

So drilling starts? Not sure if that's good news, I would prefer these resources to be exploited once stability returns. With the current political situation in Somalia, I doubt this will benefit the people.

Who gave the licences to start drilling, is it Puntland or the TFG?

[horumar]

Lets not get excited too quickly here... There is alot we don't know about this particular project and those behind it.

[Yoniii]

Originally Posted by Ras Siyan

Who gave the licences to start drilling, is it Puntland or the TFG?

I doubt that TFG has any say in Puntlands business.

Either way, it will bring wealth which will lead to developments in the region. I'm sure that this will be a positive outcome, the only risk I see is if they start beefing with Somaliland over territory both regions claim.

[Xusein]

Originally Posted by Yoniii

I doubt that TFG has any say in Puntlands business.

The PM of the TFG is a Puntlander.

[horumar]

No doubt this is a major project that will be a game changer not only within Somalia but also within the region. Hopefully it will bring peace and stability and more use of our other natural resources.

[juzme123]

I was juat checking the latest news and it seems that 4bn barrels is estimated to be in this particular sitr/field.

[Mr. Eritrean]

This small region alone may contain 4 billion barrels of oil. With Somalia's population, this will be huge.

Somalia oil exploration: Drilling begins in Puntland

The region of Somalia where the wells are being drilled may have reserves of up to 4bn barrels of oil

Oil exploration has begun in the arid north-east of Somalia, which has been wracked by civil war for two decades.

The Canadian firm Africa Oil behind the project said its two wells are the first to be drilled there in 21 years.

The semi-autonomous Puntland region where the drilling is taking place says it is an opportunity for peace.

"It's a new beginning - if oil is found it will change Somalia for the better," Issa Farah head of Puntland's Petroleum and Minerals Agency told the BBC.

Speaking on the BBC's Focus on Africa programme, he said it was an important development not only for Puntland, but the whole of Somalia, which has not had a functioning central government since 1991 and has been convulsed by fighting between militias.

"I think in 10 years' time - if oil is found, we will see a better country, a stronger country that lives in peace and prosperity with its own neighbours and hopefully that produces what we have been all looking for - peace, prosperity, development and progress," he said.

In the area where the two wells are being drilled to a depth of 3,800m (about two miles), there is an assumption that "there will be about 3bn to 4bn barrels of oil", he said.


Nigeria, which is Africa's biggest oil producer, is estimated by the International Energy Agency to hold 37bn barrels of reserve oil.

According to Africa Oil, whose firm Horn Petroleum Corporation is operating the project, the drilling of each well will take about three months.

"These wells are the first to be drilled into the deep areas of the rift basins and will be key to unlocking the hydrocarbon potential of this unexplored prospective trend," David Grellman, head of Horn Petroleum Corporation, said in a statement.

Mr Farah said that Puntland would not allow this "historic project" - involving three oil firms - to be a curse, as oil has proved in some other African countries.

"Before any barrel of oil comes out will have a policy that will benefit our own people and will not be detrimental to us," he said.

"We want this to be something that can improve our lives, not take us back into the dark ages."

Puntland is relatively stable compared with other parts of Somalia, but many of the pirates who function off the country's coast are based in the region.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16600649

[Yoniii]

Africa oil, interesting.

Originally Posted by Xusein

The PM of the TFG is a Puntlander.

I didn't know that, but do they have political power in Puntland?

[juzme123]

Originally Posted by Yoniii

Africa oil, interesting.

How so ?

[ja'far]

Originally Posted by Xusein

Puntlander.

I never heard that word before.

[Yoniii]

Originally Posted by juzme123

How so ?

They have three blocks in Ethiopia, two of them in Ogaden.

[horumar]

^puntland or northeastern part of somalia was never a separatist state and is major player in somali politics. After the writing of the conistitution, we will know how somalia will distribute the benefits of its natural resources. As for somaliland or nothern part of somalia, it has significant part of that land that's prounion that will make it impossible to leave somalia. One needs to separate reality from fiction or wishes.

[juzme123]

Originally Posted by Yoniii

They have three blocks in Ethiopia, two of them in Ogaden.

That is interesting indeed.

[Xusein]

Originally Posted by ja'far

I never heard that word before.

LOL.

[Ayatulahi]

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[musa90]

Good news. Hopefully tangible results will be obtained soon.

[Constantine MMX]

^I'm 100% sure there are oil reserves of a commercial magnitude that can uplift the country, otherwise Connoco wouldn't have stuck around for half the civil-war. A classified American document detailed that the company was certain a single well in the Garowe area(Nugaal Valley basin) could retrieve 300 thousand barrels a day. That's pretty substantial for a single well considering Sudan one of the major producers of the last decade was exporting around 490000 barrels a day with great economic returns and progress. If you add the Dharoor valley on top of that, Somalis could easily enter the top 5 of major African oil producers within five years of the first oil-pipes to the seaports being established.

[Xusein]

There are estimates of 3-4 billion barrels in the Dharoor Valley alone! Imagine in other parts of the country, especially the South which hasn't been explored, or the sea. The potential is limitless, our land is rich but temporarily poor due to politics!

[Constantine MMX]

- Source

In 1984, Brazilian mining company Construtora Andrade Gutierrez announced a $300 million investment in a uranium mine in northern Somalia. The deal was to be financed by Banco do Brasil, and the host government agent was the Somali Arab Mining Company (Soarmico). Soarmico was itself a joint venture founded in 1978 between the Somali government, and the Arab Mining Company based in Jordan, and Iraq.

Brazil of today is a rapidly growing economy and far more eager for natural resources now than two and half decades ago. It will be interesting to see, when investment confidence increases in Somalia, if the Brazilian mining company will return to revive the above cancelled project.

[Xusein]

We are ballin, man. Stuff like this makes me feel good.