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Behind closed doors of Puntland oil exploration deal

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Filed Under: Latest News, News in English

Puntland and Somalia Oil: Who owns the Resources the people or the corporations and will Oil be found

 

 

12th March 2012 · 0 Comments

 

Please dear brothers read this important article if you care about your people

and country:

Puntland and Somalia Oil: Who owns the Resources the people or the corporations

and will Oil be found?By Dr.Mohamed Said, 11th March 2012Somalia is claimed to

have vast resources of oil and gas in a report presented in the late 80′s by the

world Bank (The Harms and Bradley Report) . Some Study was done in the eighties

by major oil companies and then did they realize that Somalia and Sudan had the

best chances of finding oil and gas in the Eastern Africa region. Today, Sudan

produces about 500,000 barrels of Oil a day though due to politics again that

number has dwindled with the separation of Sudan into South and North and

Somalia ZERO barrels of oil a day. Why are we in this quagmire in Somalia?

Wikileaks and other reliable sources also point to collusion between President

Abdirahman Farole and Prime Minister Abdiwali M. Ali that they own shares

through their families in Horn Petroleum (51% owned by Africa Oil) which was

created recently in July 2011 just after Prime Minister Abdiwali M. Ali came to

power at the Transitional Federal Government based in Mogadishu. The ownership

structure also looks one sided with the Oil companies owning 70% while the

Puntland Government owns 30% – the real question is where are the Somali

Parliamentarian at both the Puntland and TFG level who are to debate strategic

issues of this nature and why are they silent on this issue? The above solid

information should lead to the impeachment of both Prime Minister Abdiwali M.

Ali and President Farole of Puntland for corruption and abuse of office.

Currently, the ongoing drilling for two wells in Puntland was done without a

proper technical analysis and the reasons are found here in my humble view:Horn

Petroleum, Range Resources and Africa Oil announced recently that they have

crossed the 2053Metres with no oil but only some shows – we knew that even

before they started the drilling. They were only stating an obvious statement.

Their target or in industry jargon TD was going to be 3800 metres (see their 7th

March report here: http://www.hornpetroleum.com/s/News_Releases.asp) – my humble

bet is, these guys will find nothing. A similar case study can be found at what

happened in 2005 offshore Kenya where Woodside petroleum booked a health

$40million tax loss and the whole public relations fiasco of not finding oil was

left to the Kenyan Government and its Ministry of energy – a wrong spot or

prospect was drilled without proper due diligence. It took several years the

Kenyan government to bring interest back at its E&P sector.

Furthermore, we have the following from Africa Oil ….’ The operator has mapped

numerous prospects and leads across both the Nugaal Valley and Dharoor Valley

rifts that appear to display some of the key elements recognized within the

Yemeni rift analogues. Although the prospectivity is based solely on the loose

grids of 2D seismic and potential field data, potential play fairways and large

trapping geometries can be mapped’ – why not do more mappings?(Ref:

http://www.africaoilcorp.com/s/Puntland.asp?ReportID=505141)and here

http://www.africaoilcorp.com/i/pdf/Q3_Presidents_Message.pdf. Classified

Information we have gathered from reliable sources also point to …‘a well

planned process and collusion between some Arab states and the companies

drilling for oil in Puntland. The collusion is in the form of Saracen a

mercenary company with connections to British and South African former special

forces which is being funded by the UAE government to the tune of several tens

of millions of dollars for protecting Puntland oil and gas companies from

threats of resistance and a meagre return that the oil companies will drill at a

wrong place and that they shall be guided on where to drill for oil and gas…….

That might Result in the downgrading for the prospects of oil and gas in

Puntland and Somalia as an oil and gas province’.

The Site at Shabeele-1 was decided only on a mere couple of hundreds of 2D

seismic, no 3D Seismic, no Geochem Study, no Aeromagnetic Study, and with a

possible old data that is hard to process which will result in ZERO finding and

NO OIL at that end. According to industry best practice and international

bench-marking in the E&P sector what this junior companies have done is like

committing treason of sorts on the technical front.

Further Studies point to… ‘There were three wells drilled within the Nugal

Valley. The two key wells drilled within the Nugaal Basin are the Nogal 1 and

Kalis-1. The drilling reports for these two wells indicated that Lower

Cretaceous and Jurassic sandstone targets were not reached but that oil shows

were found in some of the shallower sandstones – why not reach the targets?. The

Darin 1 well drilled on the rim of the Dharoor Valley, outside the rift valley

sequence and also off-structure, though it encountered dead or heavy oil shows

in several horizons’.

 

Surface oil seeps, as well as oil shows reported in several exploration wells

drilled by previous operators in the area, indicate that the source rocks have

generated hydrocarbons and that they have migrated through the system – why not

drill in this basin first which had clear targets shown by Conoco in the late

80’s – they spent over $150million dollars then which is equivalent of almost

$1Billion of today. Surely, will they really walk away from their assets in

Somalia and Even AGIP- ENI has block 31 on its Balance Sheet?

The Oil companies currently drilling in Puntland will not lose anything in this

virtual transaction they will gain and post a tax loss on the balance sheet of

their companies and secondly they can use the dry well for, yes – Nuclear waste

disposal that can generate hundreds of millions of dollars and Farole’s sons are

taking that deal by the nose. (Please see my previous article Puntland: Is it

Oil exploration or dumping of nuclear waste?

http://www.galgalanews.com/?p=5587)Finally, who really owns the assets of Oil

and gas in Puntland? Information on Wikipedia

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_exploration_in_Puntland) and IHS (www.ihs.com)

really question the ownership of Oil and gas in Somalia. We heard recently that

AGIP-ENI and Conoco have lodged complaints at the Hague for violations of their

concessions in Somalia.

In Somalia, we have vast resources of oil and gas but we need to search and

manage it wisely or else we shall go the way of Libya, Syria, Nigeria, and

Afghanistan where government have collapsed or are on the way to collapsing or

in the GCC countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar where financial and

political policies are made for them and will be misguided and their finances

shall be controlled by virtual companies in tax havens.

Puntland, and Somalia at large welcome to the murky world of Oil and Gas

Geopolitics where friends and foes cannot be differentiated on face value.

The writer is an Energy and Resources Management Consultant and can be contacted

 

By Galgalanews Agency

 

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