Oil exploration in Puntland, Somalia

[Dervish]

Reer nasahaablood if you guys behave we might give you aid money from our oil fields. Only if you behave like big boys

[Dr_Osman]

Burahadeer show me one drill in somaliland. put your money where ur mouth is!!! You cant cause somaliland has nothing. Puntland 1600km of coastline with 3 concessions already gone. 60 billion barrel potential

[Dr_Osman]

No region in Somalia that can compete on the oil front with Puntland. 5-6 companies inside investing, 1600km coast-line with concessions already gone with 60 billion barrells of oil best estimates. 20 billion barrels of oil onshore. TFG cries and screams when it hears puntland but doesnt do so with other region which tells you something

[Somalia]

Dr_Osman;776174 wrote:

Burahadeer show me one drill in somaliland. put your money where ur mouth is!!! You cant cause somaliland has nothing. Puntland 1600km of coastline with 3 concessions already gone.

60 billion barrel potential

Calm down, mate.

[Che -Guevara]

^loooooooooooool

[Somalia]

burahadeer;776168 wrote:

so nugal is all yours.That's what put you in trouble! learn before you brag about every little thing & let's see yours! The largest reservoir is almost 300 sq miles from near Burao to Gardho.Look the distance in between...is called Nogal uplift.There r also in the red sea & all along the coast from east to west...anyway be happy & we be happy............

Every block is within Puntland and SSC areas.

 

The only form of oil in the secessionist region is in the Northern parts of Berbera where oil seeps are located but no major block.

[GoldCoast]

Dr_Osman;776175 wrote:

No region in Somalia that can compete on the oil front with Puntland. 5-6 companies inside investing, 1600km coast-line with concessions already gone with 60 billion barrells of oil best estimates. 20 billion barrels of oil onshore. TFG cries and screams when it hears puntland but doesnt do so with other region which tells you something

 

LOL 60 billion!!!

[burahadeer]

19 May 2007 04:26

SOMALIA WATCH

 

 

Country

Title: [sW Country] (AAPG/The Times/Petroleum Economist) OIL IN SOMALIA?

Posted by/on:[AMJ][Friday, Sept. 22, 2000]

Based on published and unpublished data, the geology of these basins proves that oil and gas have been generated with favorable reservoirs, as well as structural and stratigraphic traps. Moreover, continuation of these basins across the gulf, matching the hydrocarbon-producing Marib-Hajar and Say'un-Al Masila basins of Yemen, raises the hydrocarbon prospect of northern Somalia...."Abstract from the AAPG Eastern Section 2000 Meeting"

 

 

 

Stratigraphy and Petroleum Prospects of Northern Somalia

 

SALAD HERSI, O., Quebec Geoscience Center, Ste-Foy, QC; and HILOWLE MOHAMED, A., Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON

 

The sedimentary cover of Northern Somalia includes post-Triassic continental and marine strata which accumulated in basins related to the disintegration of the Gondwanaland. Among these, the Berbera and Ahl Mado basins are the most important basins stratigraphically and hydrocarbon potential. Sedimentation in both basins begins with a Jurassic continental sandstone (Adigrat Formation) overlain by interbedded units of shallow marine limestones and shales (Bihendula sequence) in the Berbera Basin, and limestone-dominated strata with minor shale and sandstone interbeds (Ahl Mado Group) in the Ahl Mado Basin. The Cretaceous section, unconformable with the Jurassic sequence, is mainly continental (Yesomma Sandstone) in the Berbera Basin, but becomes shallow-marine, sandy to pure limestone with subordinate sandstone and shale (Tisje Formation) in the Ahl Mado Basin. By the end of the Cretaceous Period, a westward marine transgression permitted shallow-marine, Paleocene - lower Eocene limestone (Auradu Formation) deposition throughout northern Somalia. This is succeeded by thick anhydrite strata (Taleh Formation) overlain by Middle to Late Eocene shallow-marine limestone (Karkar Formation). The later is the youngest stratigraphic unit straddling the Gulf of Aden. Younger strata of syn- and post-rifting, continental to shallow-marine origin are confined in discrete basins along the coast of the gulf.

 

Based on published and unpublished data, the geology of these basins proves that oil and gas have been generated with favorable reservoirs, as well as structural and stratigraphic traps. Moreover, continuation of these basins across the gulf, matching the hydrocarbon-producing Marib-Hajar and Say'un-Al Masila basins of Yemen, raises the hydrocarbon prospect of northern Somalia.

 

ABSTRACTS - ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PETROLEUM GEOLOGISTS (AAPG) EASTERN SECTION 2000 MEETING

 

http://www.ogsrlibrary.com/aapg/abstracts.htm

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Copyright 1993 The Times Mirror Company

Los Angeles Times

 

January 18, 1993

 

 

THE OIL FACTOR IN SOMALIA

 

FOUR AMERICAN PETROLEUM GIANTS HAD AGREEMENTS WITH THE AFRICAN NATION BEFORE ITS CIVIL WAR BEGAN. THEY COULD REAP BIG REWARDS IF PEACE IS RESTORED

 

.

 

By MARK FINEMAN

 

DATELINE: MOGADISHU, Somalia

 

 

Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.

 

That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.

 

According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

 

Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

 

But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for pece.

 

Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to mantain a functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government's role in the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort.

 

Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad Barre's fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed in the capital, with Bush's special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters. In addition, the president of the company's subsidiary in Somalia won high official praise for serving as the government's volunteer "facilitator" during the months before and during the U.S. intervention.

 

Describing the arrangement as "a business relationship," an official spokesman for the Houston-based parent corporation of Conoco Somalia Ltd. said the U.S. government was paying rental for its use of the compound, and he insisted that Conoco was proud of resident general manager Raymond Marchand's contribution to the U.S.-led humanitarian effort.

 

John Geybauer, spokesman for Conoco Oil in Houston, said the company was acting as "a good corporate citizen and neighbor" in granting the U.S. government's request to be allowed to rent the compound. The U.S. Embassy and most other buildings and residential compounds here in the capital were rendered unusable by vandalism and fierce artillery duels during the clan wars that have consumed Somalia and starved its people.

 

In its in-house magazine last month, Conoco reprinted excerpts from a letter of commendation for Marchand written by U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Frank Libutti, who has been acting as military aide to U.S. envoy Robert B. Oakley. In the letter, Libutti praised the oil official for his role in the initial operation to land Marines on Mogadishu's beaches in December, and the general concluded, "Without Raymond's courageous contributions and selfless service, the operation would have failed."

 

But the close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. intervention force has left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the blurry line between the U.S. government and the large oil company, leading many to liken the Somalia operation to a miniature version of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led military effort in January, 1991, to drive Iraq from Kuwait and, more broadly, safeguard the world's largest oil reserves.

 

"They sent all the wrong signals when Oakley moved into the Conoco compound," said one expert on Somalia who worked with one of the four major companies as they intensified their exploration efforts in the country in the late 1980s.

 

"It's left everyone thinking the big question here isn't famine relief but oil -- whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred ," said Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast.

 

"You don't know until you study a lot further just how much is there," O'Connor said. "But it has commercial potential. It's got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together

TO BE cont'd

[The Hermet]

Dervish reeer cano hablood...this oil thing is going no where waaa sheko bax bax as usual...like the mad mullah sayid abdulle hassan style..all talk no action...losers end. the caaanooo habloood (las canod/ puntland) style. :cool:

[burahadeer]

O'Connor, a professional geologist, based his conclusion on the findings of some of the world's top petroleum geologists. In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers.

 

Presenting their results during a three-day conference in London in September, 1991, two of those geologists, an American and an Egyptian, reported that an analysis of nine exploratory wells drilled in Somalia indicated that the region is "situated within the oil window, and thus (is) highly prospective for gas and oil." A report by a third geologist, Z. R. Beydoun, said offshore sites possess "the geological parameters conducive to the generation, expulsion and trapping of significant amounts of oil and gas."

 

Beydoun, who now works for Marathon Oil in London, cautioned in a recent interview that on the basis of his findings alone, "you cannot say there definitely is oil," but he added: "The different ingredients for generation of oil are there. The question is whether the oil generated there has been trapped or whether it dispersed or evaporated."

 

Beginni 1986, Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and, briefly, Shell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre's government. Somalia was soon carved up into concessional blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones.

 

The companies' interest in Somalia clearly predated the World Bank study. It was grounded in the findings of another, highly successful exploration effort by the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corp. across the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen, where geologists disclosed in the mid-1980s that the estimated 1 billion barrels of Yemeni oil reserves were part of a great underground rift, or valley, that arced into and across northern Somalia.

 

Hunt's Yemeni operation, which is now yielding nearly 200,000 barrels of oil a day, and its implications for the entire region were not lost on then-Vice President George Bush.

 

In fact, Bush witnessed it firsthand in April, 1986, when he officially dedicated Hunt's new $18-million refinery near the ancient Yemeni town of Marib. In remarks during the event, Bush emphasized the critical value of supporting U.S. corporate efforts to develop and safeguard potential oil reserves in the region.

 

In his speech, Bush stressed "the growing strategic importance to the West of developing crude oil sources in the region away from the Strait of Hormuz," according to a report three weeks later in the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey.

 

Bush's reference was to the geographical choke point that controls access to the Persian Gulf and its vast oil reserves. It came at the end of a 10-day Middle East tour in which the vice president drew fire for appearing to advocate higher oil and gasoline prices.

 

"Throughout the course of his 17,000-mile trip, Bush suggested continued low (oil) prices would jeopardize a domestic oil industry 'vital to the national security interests of the United States,' which was interpreted at home and abroad as a sign the onetime oil driller from Texas was coming to the aid of his former associates," United Press International reported from Washington the day after Bush dedicated Hunt's Yemen refinery.

 

No such criticism accompanied Bush's decision late last year to send more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, widely applauded as a bold and costly step to save an estimated 2 million Somalis from starvation by opening up relief supply lines and pacifying the famine-struck nation.

 

But since the U.S. intervention began, neither the Bush Administration nor any of the oil companies that had been active in Somalia up until the civil war broke out in early 1991 have commented publicly on Somalia's potential for oil and natural gas production. Even in private, veteran oil company exploration experts played down any possible connection between the Administration's move into Somalia and the corporate concessions at stake.

 

"In the oil world, Somalia is a fringe exploration area," said one Conoco executive who asked not to be named. "They've overexaggerated it," he said of the geologists' optimism about the prospective oil reserves there. And as for Washington's motives in Somalia, he brushed aside criticisms that have been voiced quietly in Mogadishu, saying, "With America, there is a genuine humanitarian streak in us . . . that many other countries and cultures cannot understand."

 

But the same source added that Conoco's decision to maintain its headquarters in the Somali capital even after it pulled out the last of its major equipment in the spring of 1992 was certainly not a humanitarian one. And he confirmed that the company, which has explored Somalia in three major phases beginning in 1952, had achieved "very good oil shows" -- industry terminology for an exploration phase that often precedes a major discovery -- just before the war broke out.

 

"We had these very good shows," he said. "We were pleased. That's why Conoco stayed on. . . . The people in Houston are convinced there's oil there."

 

Indeed, the same Conoco World article that praised Conoco's general manager in Somalia for his role in the humanitarian effort quoted Marchand as saying, "We stayed because of Somalia's potential for the company and to protect our assets."

 

Marchand, a French citizen who came to Somalia from Chad after a civil war forced Conoco to suspend operations there, explained the role played by his firm in helping set up the U.S.-led pacification mission in Mogadishu.

 

"When the State Department asked Conoco management for assistance, I was glad to use the company's influence in Somalia for the success of this mission," he said in the magazine article. "I just treated it like a company operation -- like moving a rig. I did it for this operation because the (U.S.) officials weren't familiar with the environment."

 

Marchand and his company were clearly familiar with the anarchy into which Somalia has descended over the past two years -- a nation with no functioning government, no utilities and few roads, a place ruled loosely by regional warlords.

 

Of the four U.S. companies holding the Siad Barre-era oil concessions, Conoco is believed to be the only one that negotiated what spokesman Geybauer called "a standstill agreement" with an interim government set up by one of Mogadishu's two principal warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Industry sources said the other U.S. companies with contracts in Somalia cited "force majeure" (superior power), a legal term asserting that they were forced by the war to abandon their exploration efforts and would return as soon as peace is restored.

 

"It's going to be very interesting to see whether these agreements are still good," said Mohamed Jirdeh, a prominent Somali businessman in Mogadishu who is familiar with the oil-concession agreements. "Whatever Siad did, all those records and contracts, all disappeared after he fled. . . . And this period has brought with it a deep change of our society.

 

"Our country is now very weak, and, of course, the American oil companies are very strong. This has to be handled very diplomatically, and I think the American government must move out of the oil business, or at least make clear that there is a definite line separating the two, if they want to maintain a long-term relationship here."

 

Fineman, Times bureau chief in Nicosia, Cyprus, was recently in Somalia.

[Somalia]

burahadeer;776200 wrote:

"It's left everyone thinking the big question here isn't famine relief but oil -- whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred ," said Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast.

 

[

INSERT

THE PART YOU EDITED OUT HERE]

 

"You don't know until you study a lot further just how much is there," O'Connor said. "But it has commercial potential. It's got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together

TO BE cont'd

The part you edited out ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

 

"

It's there. There's no doubt there's oil there,

" said Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast.

Why did you edit that bit out?

 

Original article

 

http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/15

[burahadeer]

Copyright Petroleum Economist Ltd. (UK) 1991.

Petroleum Economist. Vol 58, Issue n10, Oct, 1991, p19(2).

 

 

Oil Hopes Hinge on North Somalia

 

Maria Kielmas

A UN-funded study points to oil potential in Ethiopia and Somalia. Maria Kielmas talked to emerging rulers in the region about their oil policies.

 

Wars in countries comprising the Horn of Africa put on hold the first real spark of international industry interest in the region's oil prospects. As a variety of political factions wrestle for control in Ethiopia and Somalia, only one group, the Somali National Movement (SNM), which controls the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland in northern Somalia, has maintained a positive policy towards foreign oil investment.

 

Aside from the political conflict, oil exploration in the African Horn has generally been neglected because of a widespread perception throughout the industry that the region is gas-prone and both inaccessible and expensive to explore. The countries around the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea are regarded as too poor to afford the necessary infrastructure for gas development.

 

International Study

 

In an attempt to address the balance and provide a more considered view of petroleum potential, the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) devised a regional hydrocarbon study of the countries bordering the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Financed by the UNDP, in co-operation with the governments of France, Britain and Canada, and several oil companies, the study began work in 1988. All the countries along this coastline participated from the outset, although Saudi Arabia has since dropped out, claiming it has its own plans for Red Sea exploration.

 

The study managed to collect all relevant technical information from both Ethiopia and Somalia before this year's fighting broke out. Results of analysis to date, which indicate that the region is definitely oil-prone as well as gas-prone, are to be presented at this month's meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Eastern Hemisphere group, in London.

 

Somali Movements

 

Regional connoisseurs pick out northern Somalia as particularly prospective. Exploration here dates from the turn of the century and was conducted in the former colony of British Somaliland and was conducted by British and Italian geologists. The area rewarded explorers with numerous oil seeps and gas shows in wells drilled in the 1960s. It is geologically analogous, in parts, to southern Yemen, on the other side of the Gulf of Aden, and almost the entire area was under licence to companies by the time hostilities with the central government broke out in 1988.

 

All of the oil companies operating in the area at the time - Amoco, Chevron, Agip and Conoco - declared force majeure, but the separatist rebel group, the SNM, maintained contact with them. The companies' view, expressed privately, was that if a separate northern Somali state could provide the usual internationally-acceptable contract conditions, then, in principle, they would be prepared to resume work when it was safe.

 

The "Republic of Somaliland" corresponds " to the last mile" to the territory of British Somaliland, SNM spokesmen say. But this boundary cuts through permits held by Agip and Conoco. Currently under the control of the SNM the area is reportedly enjoying a degree of peace unheard of since the beginning of deposed president Siyad Barre's rule more than 20 years ago. The core of the peace is a deal struck between the mainly ***** clan of SNM and minority **********, Dulbahante and Gadabursi clans.

 

Talks with oil firms

 

The SNM also claims it has reached a tentative agreement with oil companies. Espousing pro-market policies, SNM spokesmen say they are committed to a mixed economy and foreign investment. All foreign companies are welcome to explore in the territory on condition that they do not prevent other companies from doing the same. But one of main problems to overcome before any work can begin is the clearing of more than one million land mines planted by the Mogadishu forces.

 

The SNM has received tacit support from Yemen, where it has an office and where it has met up with oil company officials. SNM officials are now in the process of drafting their own petroleum contract terms, but, inexplicably, have no access to existing contract wordings issued by the ousted Barre government.

 

Yet to be recognised

 

Regional analysts believe that attempts to consolidate a separate northern state could be scuppered by Saudi Arabia, a country which has never shown much enthusiasm for oil development in noughbouring states. The Arab League has shown little desire for a new, separate country either. The Republic of Somaliland has yet to be recognised by any other state, but some observers feel this could happen by default, since it at least functions, while no other part of Somalia works at all.

 

Representative from the United Somali Congress (USC), nominally in charge in Mogadishu, have also met with oil company officials, in particular Conoco, both in Somalia and in Rome. However, no news of any agreement has emerged from these meetings. Pectin is the biggest licence holders in Somalia proper, with four offshore blocks along the Indian Ocean shelf, extending approximately from Bander Beyle to south of Mogadishu. Further onshore blocks are held by Amoco and Phillips.

 

Ethiopian contracts

 

Although new petroleum legislation was passed in 1984, it took Ethiopia until 1989 to award the first licences to foreign companies. Last year, the Mengistu government awarded two permits in the ****** province to US companies Maxus Energy and Hunt Oil. Maxus acquired a 110 800-square km area close to the northern Somali border, comprising four adjacent blocks, while Hunt signed up for a 44 000-square km area in the southern ******, abutting Kenya and Somalia.

 

Coming back

 

The government reserves for itself an area around the Calub gasfield - discovered by Tenneco in 1974 and where reserves are thought to be about one trillion cubic feet - continuing appraisal work with Soviet help. Vancouver-based International Petroleum acquired the 34 000 square km Danakil Block along the Eritrean coast, farming out 60% and the operatorship to Amoco. Offshore, British Petroleum holds one area of 31 000 square km and was on the point of acquiring another block further north when the fighting escalated. All work halted as the war spread on land and BP declared force majeure last summer, when one of its seismic boats was fired on by rebels from the Eritrean Peoples' Liberation Front (EPLF).

 

The exact legal status of contracts signed with the defunct Mengistu government is unclear. This problem is further exacerbated by an emerging statist policy on the part of the various Ethiopian and Eritrean groups. Most pundits predict that after the Eritrean referendum in two years' time, a loose Ethiopian confederation will emerge, allowing the Addis Ababa government continued access to the Red Sea ports of Asab and Massawa.

 

Squabbles

 

The new rulers in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), and EPLF in Eritrea, say their first priority is to tackle famine relief and food shortages. But whatever stability exists, it is threatened by continued squabbling between factions divided on ethnic, religious and ideological lines. Notwithstanding public rhetoric about dumping their various Marxist ideologies, the EPRDF and the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front, which has been enjoying a measure of US support, remain dominated by former university students still committed to the notion of a centralised, command economy.

 

In this climate, it is unlikely that there will be any quick decision about oil company contracts, even if the stability holds. And if a decision does materialise, it is unlikely to be very favourable to the foreign companies. However, the most recent reports indicate that some Somali and Oromo groups within Ethiopia, which have embraced the same pro-market policies as the SNM in Somaliland, are emerging as power brokers. They may hold the balance between religious and ethnic divisions in the country.

 

_________________________ You want more....just google Saxiib.

[Somalia]

I ask AGAIN.

 

WHY DID YOU EDIT THAT BIT OUT?

[burahadeer]

Somalia;776207 wrote:

The part you edited out ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

 

 

 

Why did you edit that bit out?

 

Original article

 

http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/15

I didn't edit anything I know of..I might or I might not.....just read the rest or let people make up their mind.

Even if some missing,add now & still denying facts infront of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Somalia]

I think people reading this have made their mind up.

 

You took pathetic to another level sxb.