Farmaajo was a tool himself and never mattered in the big picture. The new prime minister fully backs Azania, that's clear as day, and I hope to see it take off and become a proper maamul one day.

IF the Chinese manage to drill O'gaden. I foresee another batch of chinks losing their lives over this stunt.

Utter savages. A three-hut village cannot be a maamul. Didn't an even bigger maamul "Maakhir" attempt that route and end up running into PL's arms to save it from self-inflicted starvation? Some people never learn that you can't run a state from your bedroom.

Jacaylbaro;736260 wrote: Bosaso is in danger right now .... The only time you should worry about Bosaso is if your shipment of Khat has docked, otherwise I fail to see the relevancy of Bosaso's security to you.

^ Don't worry about it, it doesn't concern the triangular enclave.

http://mareeg.com/fidsan.php?sid=20511&tirsan=3 GAROWE (Mareeg.com) – Officials from Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland and local Islamist militiamen met after years of hostilities to discuss and reach agreement, officials said. The meeting took place in parts of Nugal region of northern Somalia where a delegation representing Mohamed Said Atom, the leader of Puntland’s Islamist militiamen and officials from the administration of Punland. Security officials, who spoke to somali radio, confirmed the two parts agreed to cease fighting in the mountainous area of Galgala. The officials added that they also agreed that Galgala area to be free from other clans which have no settlement there and other issues. However, the talks come as Puntland in the past said it had crushed radical Islamic militias led by Mohammed Sa'id Atom in the mountainous Galgala areas after deadly battles. Atom is believed to have links with Al Qaeda's proxy in the Horn of Africa nation. The meeting and everything to do with it took place within the environs of Garowe. Let me repeat, no self-respecting politician would meet in a backwater village called Af-Urur; is there even enough room to host a delegation? Either way, lets let dwell too much on this. A lowly school-teacher-turned-warlord should not deserve this kind of attention and is certainly not a "sheikh."

This news is great. A centralized Somali gov't is bad for progress, it is what destroyed Somalia.

^ That is not Af-Urur, its Garowe. Please do not paint this 2-hut village as anything more than what it is, and no self-respecting person would meet in a 1-room hut for negotiations. It even says in the article that they are meeting in Gobolka Nugaal.

Drill or no drill, none of it should concern you, don't lose sleep over it.

Xaaji Xunjuf;735975 wrote: Dhaaroor vally is it inhabited by the Maakhir Folks Jacaylbaro;735946 wrote: Atom is in charge of Galgala now and the only reason Faroole wants this talks now is to save Bosaso and the main road. Two Khatlanders. All we're missing in this topic is Oodweyn and the rest of the crew. Why are you guys expending so much energy worrying about PL? Do you see PLers wasting a second of their day to respond to topics dealing with your drugged-up enclave? No. Please do the same. Taleexi, Puntland got the full permission of reer Ufeyn and reer Iskushuban, the two main sites of drilling in the Dharoor valley, which is not located in or near Maakhir sub-region. Last time, it was not reer Ufeyn but it was reer Iskushuban (Cadde Muuse's people) who chased away drilling teams due to an internal dispute. For the past year and a half, Faroole has worked very closely with the community of Iskushuban to take care of security and personal issues. Everything is in neat order.

Puntland will be Somalia's Dubai. I so badly yearn to see the momentous day of the first well.

All the drilling and the Dharoor block itself is located EAST of the highway, reer Maakhir live WEST of the highway if you remember. Drilling is taking place first in Iskushuban and second in Garowe [possibly in Ufeyn as an alternative], all of which are in Eastern and Central Bari or Nugaal. Perhaps the delusional people of Af-Urur should study geography. So what does Atam or Western Bari have to do with Range Resources? Its like asking if Al-Shabaab is okay with oil drilling in Alaska. Nonsense.

Any pictures of the university? Is it the one featured by AminArts a while back?

Beautiful speech, I'm in awe of what I read. The future looks like a beam of light, I never thought any Somali leader could speak so beautifully. This guy Oodweyn needs to get a life - he eats, sleeps and breathes Puntland, I hope he doesn't name his son Garowe.

There has been a long standing business relationship between Hiiraan and Puntland - Reer Hiiraan use Bosaso exclusively and Puntland exclusively imports fruits and veggies from Hiiraan.

Sensei;735034 wrote: Why are folks nervous about Somalia drilling oil ? No one knows. The demand for oil today is so great that it must happen. Kurdistan has been drilling its own oil for years, plenty of autonomous frontier states have been doing in-home exploration for years and selling to those willing to pay the top dollar. I have total confidence that Somalia will have buyers lined up not long from today.

Burn Notice;734960 wrote: ...puntland are at advanced stages of the process Conoco-Phillips spent $150 million exploring the Dharoor and Nugaal basins in 1983, it wasn't cheap. The only reason these regions are being explored is because someone else already spent money to do the research and its cheap/easy to buy or acquire this information as has been done by exploration companies. The only way to get to Puntland's stage would be to spend an equal amount of money to study the landscape enough to send information about the resources to the outside world.

Oodweyn, for a guy who wants his own country you spend a lot of time worrying about the affairs of Somalia. Mind your own business, you don't see me asking about Eritrea or Uzbekistan or some other foreign country and their local affairs.

http://www.oilandgaspress.com/wp/?p=5075 The first drilling will begin in July 27.

NASSIR;734582 wrote: It will. But the grand plan to spud has to be put off to ensure the settlement of outstanding issues , not to mention strengthening local institutions. Thankfully, the oustanding issues are mostly outside of the drilling regions. 100% of the Dharoor basin block is inside Puntland while 60% of the Nugaal basin block is inside Puntland. The first wells will be in safe Dharoor which will allow some much-needed cash flow to come in. I think the Atam issue should be resolved peacefully and that is being worked on, the occupied Sool and Cayn will rejoin Puntland peacefully, and the clan issues will be resolved with monetary incentives. The Khaleej states were in far worse condition than modern Puntland when oil sprang up and look at their state of peace today. Money makes angry men happy, that's for sure. 300 million barrels in just one quarter is an insane amount of money, roughly in the league of $28 billion at current market prices - that would do wonders for Puntland and the rest of the nation.

Somalia's future looks bright, I pray this oil becomes some sort of relief.

God willing this will help many Somalis and allow rebuilding to start. The 300 million barrels will be to start with the first well and will be exported over multi-year stretch. This is out of a total reserve of around 19.9 Billion Barrels at last estimate by independent research, highlighted in the second report. http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE75L0JZ20110622 LONDON (Reuters) - Red Emperor, an Australian-listed oil explorer which is due to also list on London's junior AIM market on Thursday, said it was confident it would drill a well in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region this year, shrugging off concerns about security in the Horn of Africa. The company is hoping that a London listing will enable it take advantage of local investor interest in companies exploring for oil in historically under-explored East Africa. "The market over here has a really high appetite for the high-risk, high-return nature of this drilling programme," Managing Director Greg Bandy said in an interview on Wednesday. A number of other firms including BG Group and Tullow Oil to Premier Oil and Cove Energy, have acquired interests in licences in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania in the past 12 months. Red Emperor and its partners in the two Puntland licences, Canada's Africa Oil and Range Resources, plan to drill a prospect of 300 million barrels of recoverable oil in the third quarter of 2011. The well will be the first to be drilled in the area for 20 years, said Bandy, who is confident the drilling will go ahead despite a difficult security situation in Somalia-- a country from where piracy has boomed amid a lack of effective central government. "If it was really easy to drill a well in Puntland it would have been done before now. But we're as close as we've ever been. It's right at the finish line, we think," Bandy said. Red Emperor also has a stake in an exploration property in Georgia, the former Soviet state, where it will drill two wells this year. The company, which is not planning to raise new funds when it lists on AIM, has $14 million of cash, enough to finance its share of the costs for two wells in Georgia and one in Puntland, but will need to raise more cash for further drilling in the Horn of Africa area, it said. "When we've got a more definitive timetable on drilling in Puntland that's probably the likely time when we will look to raise some money," said Bandy. The company is expected to have a market capitalisation of about 32 million pounds upon admission to AIM. The company completed its first successful well in Georgia this week and is set to move into Puntland sometime in this Quarter-Year. It estimates the reserves in Puntland to be at around 19.9 Billion Barrels. http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/30643/red-emperor-and-range-resources-prepare-for-a-potentially-transformational-phase-in-their-development-30643.html Earlier today we heard the Mukhiani-1 well in the former Soviet state of Georgia had been successfully spudded. As the drill-bit began turning it marked the start of an exciting and potentially transformational period for the two AIM-listed companies involved in the project. Range Resources (LON:RRL, ASX:RRS) and Red Emperor Resources (LON:RMP, ASX:RMP) respectively own 40 and 20 per cent of two onshore blocks in the country covering 6,500 square kilometres. The Range/Red Emperor collaboration doesn’t end here. The pair have identical 20 per cent stakes in a high impact exploration project in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia. For Range, Georgia fires the starting pistol on a drilling programme that could, if all goes to plan, elevate it to mid-cap respectability. “(It) is entering a potentially transformational phase in its development,” said Edison analyst Peter Dupont in a recent research note. “Over the next four months Range has three high-impact exploration wells scheduled in Puntland and Georgia plus a development well in Texas. “Near-term, Range is very much a play on the outcome of the high impact drilling projects, but investors should not lose sight of the Texas and Trinidad assets, which offer both excellent cash generating and development potential.” For Red Emperor success in Georgia and and Puntland will be key to narrowing the valuation gap between itself and Range. While Range has more bells and whistles – including producing assets in Trinidad and Texas – there is still a very strong case to be made that Red Emperor’s market cap of £38 million should be a little closer to Range’s £230 million price tag than it currently is. “Over the last 18 months Range has really been the darling of the market over here in the UK,” Red Emperor managing director Greg Bandy told Proactive Investors recently. “They have gained a great deal of traction and success, and a lot of the interest has been around the assets (Puntland and Georgia) that we have also got. “We are on AIM because Range has shown there is a large appetite for these assets over here.” In Georgia the Mukhiani-1 well is targeting the Vani-3 prospect, which was estimated to have between 41.7 million and 115.2 million barrels of oil-initially-in-place (P90 - P10). It is expected that Mukhiani-1 will be drilled to a depth of 3,500 metres within 45-55 days. After drilling Mukhiani-1 the rig will move on to spud a second exploration well. Range completed 410 kilometres 2D seismic on the Georgian acreage which revealed its huge potential. From this work the independent consultant RPS Energy identified 68 potential structures containing an estimated 2.045 billion barrels of oil‐in‐place. Puntland, meanwhile, could be of a different order of magnitude again. The exploration area is 40,000 square kilomttres in total and focuses on the highly prospective Dharoor and Nugaal valleys, which potentially contain 19.9 billion barrels of oil in-place. The pair’s joint venture partner and operator is Africa Oil Corp. (CVE:AOI). Drilling here is expected to get underway at some point this quarter with a two-well exploratory programme planned. It is thought the first well will be on the Dharoor Block about 120 kilometres west of the Indian Ocean shoreline and roughly 200 kilometres south-east of the principal Gulf of Aden port of Boosaaso. It is expected to be relatively deep at 4,000-5,000 metres and will target the Upper Jurassic horizons. Reflecting the depth, gross drilling costs will be substantial at about US$25 million. So both companies will need to look closely at their financing options. “If we get some definitive news on the drilling timetable and a rig being mobilised then we probably hit the market to cover this cost,” Red Emperor’s Bandy revealed recently. That said, the company has around A$14 million in the bank, which will fund the imminent two-well programme in Georgia with probably enough left over to meet the costs of the first Puntland well. “We don’t want to drill three wells with no cash in the bank afterwards,” added Red Emperor’s executive consultant Tony King. “We want to be fully buffered with some cash underpinning the business. We’ve got that at the moment.” The reaction to today’s news was somewhat muted with shares in Range up 1.12 pence at 56 pence, and Red Emperor off 0.12 pence at 26.88 pence. However the importance of today’s release shouldn’t be under-estimated.

I thank them for risking their lives so khat can flow freely in Somalia once again.

20 years later and Somalis still expect handouts to save the country they helped destroy. Look inward for inspiration. I have my eye on building my beloved Puntland and I suggest the rest of you look inward and build your home regions and the lives of your kin.

OdaySomali;734063 wrote: Hargeisa and Garowe are 'liveable' 'cities'. Timur, if you have been to Garowe, could you give us an idea of how large the city is nowadays. I hear it has grown quite a bit and it seems, from all the pictures you provide, that there are quite a few [very nice looking] hotels. How big is Garowe in relation to other Somali cities you [or anyone else] have recently visited. The pictures above are not mine, but the city itself is roughly in the range of 40,000 residents however the district is home to around 70,000-80,000 people in addition to around 40,000 IDPs. Garowe, Qardho, Lascanood are comparable size-wise, almost identical in that respect. The city, however, in proportion to its size is the best-kept city in the country, only parts of Hargeisa rivaled it in that respect. The city has a bright future and the hotels and restaurants are plenty to keep visitors happy. Above all, security prevails mansha allah.