Burn Notice

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  4. Posted

    General Duke;858380 wrote:
    The result today will be the end of transition and swearing in of new lawmakers. The election will be within this week... Stay tuned it's always sunny in Mogadishu...

    Lol, I'm sure it is G

     

    It's been a long wait so a few more days to make the right choice is more important than rushing and making the wrong one ;)

     

    A legitimate vote is paramount

     

    Thanks for the update

  6. Posted

    Chimera;857589 wrote:
    The Ideal situation would be an
    Abdiweli & Farmaajo Alliance
    . I bet the country would be back in order within two years with a functioning administration, loyal armed forces and one of the least corrupt track-records in Africa, not to mention the complete purging of all foreign forces, terrorist and peacekeepers alike, because these two men are patriots with competent teams. Sorry to say, but the likes of Sakin and Sheikh Ahmed is what's wrong with today's Somalia. The country will never recover fully, but stay dependent as it today, unless their powers are demoted significantly, but of course this is all about clans.

     

    It reminds me of Bill Connolly's character in the 'Last Samurai' when he mocked the rebels for still wearing medieval 'armour' in the age of machine guns. Somalis are still using clans in the age of ethnicities, countries and major trading blocks, smh.

     

    Be honest with yourselves, regardless of whether these candidates come from your clans or not, focus instead on whether they're capable of providing electricity to Somali homes, if they can rebuild the armed forces, establish 'child infrastructure' in the form of playgrounds, schools and nurseries, whether they can root out corruption, establish total food-security, expand our trading markets, create equality in equity amongst the genders, construct major infrastructural projects, defend our interests on the international stage, etc.

     

    Only then will you realise how little 'clan' should mean to you if you actually care about the superstructure that is a State i.e the Somali Republic, the only natural champion of the Somali people on this planet, to corrupt this superstructure with trivial matters is to seal your own fate in a endless downwards spiral of DOOM!

     

    Nice post...thanks for sharing

  8. Posted

    General Duke;856825 wrote:
    Again it's no more than a soundbite to explain away the sudden departure of Sharif Ahmed. Much like him naming his own districts without following the law. He has been acting irrationally lately....
    :D

    Maybe if he actually did something when he had the opportunity during his tenure he wouldn't need to run around scrambling for votes

     

    He had his chance, time to give someone with the country's interests at heart instead of their own ;)

  10. Posted

    We’ve been told by email via government aides in the Somali capital that President Ahmed is subtly threatening a return to open conflict if his camp loses the top seat.

     

    DissidentNation.com

     

    Sharif is a disgrace...he needs to thrown out ASAP ...it will be very unfortunate should he continue as President ...

     

     

    I

  11. Posted

    uchi;854478 wrote:
    Bloody Sherif atleast get your hands out below the table. It's sign of respect you keep your hands on the table at all times. Bloody hell, he looks like he is in the wild west, as if to be holding a pistol underneath aiming at Clinton
    :)

    LMAO...funniest thing I've read all day ;)

  12. Posted

    *

    High Risk vs. High Reward: Oil in Somalia

    Oil Investing News

    Tuesday, July 24, 2012

    by Adam Currie

     

    As the price of oil continues to trade at high levels, more and more explorers are expanding their geographical focus in the hope of discovering the perfect oil play. Companies are having to push beyond the traditional boundaries of oil safe havens and expand their efforts into uncharted territory. Nowhere is this more evident than the surge of interest in the East African country of Somalia.

    *

    History

    In the 1860s, at the height of the colonial era, France acquired a foothold on the African east coast for what was later to become known as Somalia, or “the Horn of Africa.” A decade later, Britain proclaimed Somaliland a protectorate until 1888 when an Anglo-French agreement defined the boundary between Btritish and French possessions. Further European presence was felt in 1889 when central Somalia was set up as an Italian protectorate. The largely divided country gradually obtained independence from protectorates between 1950-1960, while a section of the country, Somaliland, declared unilateral independence in 1991, remaining a functioning, but unrecognized, independent republic ever since.

    Economic and geopolitical conditions

    From a political aspect, Somalia is the very epitome of unsettled. Since the fall of Somalia’s pro-US president, Mohamad Siad Barre, in 1991, the country has been in a state of civil disorder. As a result of the absence of a central authority, tribal conflicts and a resurgent military has dominated the politics of the country.

    After Somalia’s independence in 1960, economic growth failed to keep pace with the rise in population caused by an influx of refugees, resulting in a heavy dependence on agriculture — which is frequently affected by droughts. The country’s largest industry is processing of agricultural food products and there has been minimal industrial development. Except for tin, the country’s minerals remain under-developed, although there has been increasing interest by international companies seeking to prospect for oil.

    Somalia’s political situation makes the area high-risk from an investment perspective, while on the other hand unexplored reserves could result in high reward if previous reserve estimations are proven accurate.

    Historical and potential exploration initiatives

    WT Blanford of the Geological Survey of India wrote the earliest geological report of Somalia as far back as 1870. Since that time there have been a number of hydrocarbon studies focused on oil and gas potential.

    Pro-US policy between the 1950′s and early 1990′s saw companies such as ConocoPhilips (NYSE:COP) and Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) obtain the rights to explore Somalia in three major phases. In the early 1990’s Conoco stated that it had made “very good oil shows” — industry terminology for an exploration phase that often precedes a major discovery — however, a bloody civil war put an end to activities in the area.

    While the area is deemed high-risk, there is a high probability of large-scale oil plays. According to a 1991 World Bank study, “the geological parameters” are “conducive to the generation, expulsion and trapping of significant amounts of oil and gas.”

    Possible drawbacks

    Somalia’s geostrategic location and proximity to waters surrounding the Horn of Africa make the region a prime location for oil import and export. With no public infrastructure to speak of and large-scale transportation almost nonexistent, the country is far off from being able to take advantage of its hydrocarbon resources. However, some believe that with the confirmation of large-scale oil and gas plays, this could change. For this to take place, politicians and tribal leaders will need to show pragmatism and work together on a national level, as opposed to a tribal level.

    International mediation may be necessary as Kenya and Somalia are in disagreement over the location of their boundary line in the Indian Ocean. This line will dictate rights for exploration, as well as royalties earned, from any offshore discoveries.

    From an infrastructure standpoint, many will be hesitant to invest in the region until it has established a legal framework to determine oil revenue-sharing procedures, and reduce the likelihood of corrupt practices by officials.

    Exploration Opportunities

    Horn Petroleum Corporation (TSXV:HRN) is a Canadian oil and gas company with assets in Puntland, Somalia. It holds a 60 percent interest in the Dharoor and Nugaal blocks encompassing a Jurassic Rift Basin.

    The company’s plays represents a high risk vs. high reward scenario in that it offers the opportunity to explore in a virtually untouched major oil system, with two large blocks in the Nugaal and Darin Mesozoic basins — extensions of the multi-billion barrel Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila Basins of Yemen. Horn’s management structure has a superb track record in creating shareholder value (two previous companies acquired as penny stocks having been sold at valuations of over $30 per share). A drilling campaign on the project is also already underway.

    African-focused Ophir Energy plc (LSE:OPHR) has oil and gas exploration assets in a number of African locations including the Berbera block in Somiland. Ophir and UAE-based Ras Al Khaimah Gas Company (RAKgas) are currently participating in the Berbera Production Sharing Agreement (Berbera PSA). Only three wells have been drilled in the original Berbera Block, two of which were located offshore. The third well, the only onshore well in the block, was a 243-meter-deep stratigraphic well. Three wells, drilled adjacent to the western edge of the block, have all encountered good oil shows.

    Ophir’s current strategy is to focus upon early stage exploration projects in frontier basins and “neglected” parts of proven basins, as well as mature projects with proven or probable reserves. The company enjoys a depth of contacts and relationships with governments and oil and gas industry participants throughout Africa – a major advantage when working on African projects.

    Red Emperor Resources (ASX:RMP) holds a 20 percent working interest in two licenses encompassing the highly prospective Dharoor and Nugaal valleys. These two exploration areas have been independently assessed to potentially contain over 19.9 billion barrels of oil in-place.

    The company’s Shabeel North well is currently being drilled and targeting Upper Cretaceous Jesomma sands, which had positive oil and gas shows in the Shabeel 1 well located slightly to the south. Petrophysical analysis of downhole electrical logs in the Shabeel -1 well indicated a potential pay zone of up to 12 to 20 meters with an average porosity of 18 to 20 percent. Red Emperor has Production Sharing Agreements (PSA’s) along with Horn Petroleum and Range Resources Limited (ASX: RRS).

    Securities Disclosure: I, Adam Currie, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

  13. Posted

    Timur;852564 wrote:
    A dark day for Puntland.
    :(

    more to this than meets the eye...

     

    wait for the new constitution to be ratified giving the federal states the power to manage their natural resources and then share profits with the federal government and we will see the real story

     

    watch this space

  14. Posted

    OIL AND GAS SECURITY IN PUNTLAND

    by DISSIDENT NATION on JULY 20, 2012 in POLITICS with 2 COMMENTS

     

    Skipping over the bulk of the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group’s (SEMG) flawed recent report on the weapons embargo on Somalia, we were able to get a general idea of the length to which the state of Puntland has gone to safeguard its economic future. What we found was a well-equipped (by all legal means) authority that could handle the security needs of the region.

     

     

    Puntland is not at all wrong for wanting security for these oil and gas interests, Al-Shabaab militants repeatedly threaten the region’s vital oil exploration project with attacks. We have looked through the data provided by the monitoring group in their latest report and found out that the security of the oil and gas exploration program in Puntland is taken very seriously.

     

    A special outfit called the Exploration Security Unit (ESU) is now fully operating in Puntland. The ESU is a relatively new project that was founded with the help of Eric Prince, founder of the Abu Dhabi-based private military company Xe, formerly known as Blackwater.

     

    The ESU likely operates alongside the Puntland Maritime Police Forces (PMPF), and is based in a camp in Qaw, just a few dozen miles west of Bosaso, the long-rumored end destination of a pipeline serving the Dharoor Valley. The camp has over 70 tents, and is outfitted with a modern operational command center, a control tower, an airstrip, a helicopter deck, and has enough capacity for 1,500 men–about 1,000 of whom are already trained in the program. These are assets not seen among any other conventional force in Somalia, including the African Union forces and the Ethiopian forces.

     

    Weapons are flown into the base from Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. All of this is of course within Puntland’s legal right as a signatory of the Somali roadmap and an ally in both the War on Terror and the fight against piracy, and the places of origin of these weapons are proven partners of Somalia and the international community.

     

    The top financier of this entire program is the UAE, which provides $2 million a month for operational costs, making Puntland’s military budget almost equal to Djibouti. With its air assets, Puntland’s military capability is greater than that of the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, though just as necessary if not more so. And though the UAE denies its direct involvement, some of its highest-ranking figures, including the crown prince, have been reported to maintain close ties with the development of the Puntland security initiative.

     

    Africa Oil, an exploration company based in Canada, has also gone to its own lengths to help the security situation. The explorer assigned South Africa’s Pathfinder Corporation to consulting duties with Puntland’s ESU. Africa Oil is also reported to have provided direct funding for the ESU at times, understandably so. Exploration is taken very seriously by all parties, perhaps more so than piracy at times, though it never seems that way in official capacity.

     

    While Puntland’s security apparatus has been relatively strong for some time, it was in late 2011 that efforts to secure outside support were redoubled. It was also around that time when all of the major infrastructure and logistics preparations for security arrangements were finalized, just ahead of major exploration. When assessing the cost to drill in Puntland, the security headache and the resources that went into it were just as exhausting, if not more so, than the actual task of drilling.

     

    There is a regional and global interest in making sure that Somalia has an economic lifeline after it stabilizes. The UAE has an interest in partnering up with a future oil-producing Somalia much in the same way that it provides industrial services to Western nations. In 2008 the UAE-based industrial giant Lootah Group had a $48 million plan to modernize Puntland’s commercial services and setup a free trade zone. No one was ever certain how far those plans got, but the UAE’s interest in Somalia has never waned, and in fact may have manifested itself in a much bigger way.

     

    DissidentNation.com

     

    tagged:

  15. Posted

    THE CALM BEFORE SOMALIA’S GREAT STORM

    by DISSIDENT NATION on JULY 17, 2012 in POLITICS with NO COMMENTS

     

    At this moment, Somalia is only matched by the likes of Syria and Mali when it comes to the intensity of the pressure being placed on them to deliver a specific set of results. In a few weeks time, Somalia is expected to have a new president, a new constitution, and the framework for which it will operate until the foreseeable future.

     

    The resulting conclusion that is to be drawn in the short time remaining will decide if Somalia makes a smooth return to the international community or if its nightmare only assumes a quieter form. Time will tell. And time is just four more weeks and a few days. Everyone in Somalia is quiet and even its most eccentric personalities are quietly hidden. The conflict has died down and the rhetoric tuned out. Every soul in this nation of some ten million is holding his or her breath, waiting for the final countdown. And we now review what is really going on in this most quiet of moments in Somalia’s modern history.

     

     

    Mogadishu

     

    The capital, having experienced a rare attack just a day ago is undergoing a tight security check. Every inch of Mogadishu and its environs for miles and miles in every direction have been secured and the African Union peacekeepers have halted their advance on Al-Shabaab strongholds to focus their attention on Mogadishu. The coming week will mark another milestone in Somalia’s turbulent return to normalcy; elders from across the nation will vote on the new constitution of the Somali Republic.

     

    After weeks of wrangling, the elders of Mogadishu’s most prominent clan voiced their support for the progress of the voting process and all is going as planned. Though the constitution is unclear about Mogadishu’s status, key Somali leaders have reiterated that it will without question remain the nation’s capital. Also unclear is the federalism statute for which the transition was to mark.

     

    Somaliland

     

    Fighting in the disputed eastern regions have come to a lull as a drought ravages the Somaliland interior. President Silanyo is expected to continue talks with Somali president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The most controversial piece of news out of Somaliland in the past few weeks has been the unlawful imprisonment of a high-ranking traditional elder.

     

    Puntland

     

    After a year of success against Somalia’s pirate scourge, Puntland was unlawfully scrutinized for its piracy program despite successes. For a brief moment the state looked to have lost funding for its crucial anti-piracy program but later received a guarantee from the UAE that funding of up to $2 million a month would continue. Since the June conference on piracy in Dubai, Puntland has continued its pursuit of pirates, now on the tail a gang of kidnappers linked with a pirate cartel based in neighboring Galmudug State.

     

    Earlier this week, Puntland’s representative elders voted unanimously to push forth the final constitutional voting process to be held in Mogadishu, and some have already arrived. They are to meet with the rest of the 825 members of the voting committee and thrust Somalia forward into the next phase.

     

    The Puntland leadership has been quiet for the past few months, with President Farole returning in recent weeks from a nearly two-month trip abroad, to locations in Djibouti, the United Arab Emirates, India, and elsewhere seeking anti-piracy assistance and development partnerships. The region’s attention-getting energy exploration program has also been quiet as of late, with only the heads of the companies giving statements of progress. Confidence from the oil companies is at its highest in recent weeks, and the drilling phase at the second well is coming to a close.

     

    Somalis abroad have expressed to us that the Puntland leader is hoping to use a positive report on the exploration to secure better footing for the region in the coming political phase. Puntland’s own 14th anniversary is coming up on August 1st and preparation for the big day has begun in the region and abroad.

     

    Other regions

     

    AMISOM forces have declared the districts surrounding Mogadishu as safe zones and Kenya’s forays into Somalia continue to cause bloodshed near the border–though often on Kenya’s side lately. Since pirates were kicked out of Puntland they have regrouped along the shores of the neighboring districts in Galmudug.

     

    DissidentNation.com

     

    tagged:

  17. Posted

    When the regime of former Somali president Siad Barre fell in 1991 the ensuing conflict damaged or destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure. Before the collapse of the last Somali regime, the Americans, Soviets, Italians, Iraqis, Emiratis, Chinese, Saudis, and a number of smaller partners took turns financing and constructing various parts of Somalia’s civil infrastructure and developing its manufacturing capacity.

     

    Today, Somalia’s wide-eyed former partners no longer have any interest in the country. But Somalia is not left out in the cold since it still has possessions worthy of desire. The only reason why the Chinese built the roads and the Soviets built the ports and the Arabs built the refineries in Somalia was for a pragmatic ulterior motive.

     

    To no one’s surprise, newcomers like Turkey, the United Kingdom, and even India are focusing on Somalia and offering to pick up where others left off. Even during war, Somalia still attracts old partners–China, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and a handful of former assistance-providing states are refocused on Somalia and wanting a piece of the pie they once lusted after.

     

     

    Old costs

     

    To understand how much money Somalia’s reconstruction will demand, you must first assess individual costs, and the first clues are in the past. The Italians spent $250 Million constructing a road between Garowe and Bosaso. And in 1989 contracts were signed with Romania to construct a $500 million oil refinery with a 200,000 barrel per day capacity, though the project never materialized due to the conflict that erupted two years into planning.

     

    Somali ports, chiefly Berbera and Kismayo, were built and improved both jointly and separately by the Soviets and Americans, and are said to have cost in the league of over $100 million. Somalia’s only major agricultural undertaking, the Baardheere Dam Project, was estimated to cost $600 million by the world bank, though it never came to fruition.

     

    New costs

     

    A 120,000 barrel per day refinery in Lamu, Kenya is expected to cost $2.5 billion, meaning that the same refinery that was planned in Somalia back in ’89 would cost roughly $4.2 billion if built today. When considering Somalia’s odd though advantageous shape and abundance of ports and possible harbors, any pipeline from the oil or gas source to the nearest shores would cost under a billion dollars.

     

    Similarly, roads and railroads can be easily and cheaply built in Somalia, costing altogether no more than $5 billion to serve the entire country. Somalia’s flat landscape and narrow rivers also leaves demand for expensive bridges virtually nonexistent. Networks of bridges over land and rivers across Somalia would cost no more than a billion dollars in the effort to ease travel.

     

    Somalia’s petroleum and natural gas potential also eases the demand for energy-producing hydroelectric dams. Any dams in Somalia would be to the effect of supporting agriculture. Somalia’s aridity can be alleviated through canal networks and a system of boreholes in the driest regions. In the near future, Somalia will not need desalination and thus we can avoid worrying about those costs. For all agricultural infrastructure let’s say $2 billion would be needed in the near future.

     

    Somalia currently has four major ports, three of which are meeting their current demands. While Mogadishu, Kismayo, and Berbera will only need technological upgrades, Bosaso seaport will need a major reconstruction to meet future demands. As is already happening, the business and production needs and exports of Somalia’s inland communities can be diverted to any of the major ports; Somalia’s port infrastructure is in no need of further development at the moment. The total funding needed for seaport renovation and reconstruction would not float much more than a billion dollars initially, if even that.

     

    Since the outbreak of civil war in 1991, Somalia has only had one new airport/airstrip built, and it’s the Bandar Qassim International Airport in Bosaso. The airport comfortably handles its current demands, though it is in dire need of a technology and services upgrade. Only Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu is currently equipped with the tools to qualify even as semi-modernized.

     

    Somalia will need at least one new airport to meet future aviation demands going in and out of the country, and a modest $1 billion upgrade to Aden Adde International would do the trick. From Mogadishu, passengers can take further flights to other locations across the country. Smaller airports like those in Bosaso, Hargeisa, Kismayo, and elsewhere will need only minor technological upgrades.

     

    Thus far we are floating around $15-20 billion total needed to rebuild Somalia’s most key infrastructure for the decade coming.

     

    Secondary infrastructure

     

    After the roads, sea and air ports, dams, and refineries are patched up Somalia will need to rebuild its manufacturing infrastructure. Textile factories, tobacco processing plants, fisheries, and mineral processing plants will need to be reintroduced to meet Somalia’s domestic demand if it is to be reintegrated into the international community as a modern nation.

     

    The costs of these factories prewar are hard to find, and negligible as well since the Somalia of 1980 was not expected to be a strong performer. But today there is immense pressure on Somalia to produce and to compete on a higher level, from both its neighbors and a demanding global community. To meet major demands, Somalia will need to invest at least $5 billion to construct factories and train its people in the capacity to meet expected demands.

     

    Health, education, and other types of social infrastructure will have to take a backseat to Somalia’s economic needs. Taking a page out of Asia’s growth trends, the first decade should be focused primarily on getting everyone into work so the current generation can afford to put their children in school.

     

    How will this be financed?

     

    Abound are plenty of outlets to seek financing. Loans from international organizations are abound, though dangerous. Another way to go about this is to use leverage. Somalia has to entice investors with its goods; minerals, oil, natural gas, agricultural property, and whatever else it potentially sell to interested parties. And considering the level of interest nations like Turkey and the UK have taken, Somalia must have already pitched a hell of a campaign.

  18. Posted

    THE UNITED NATIONS’ BOGUS MONITORING REPORT ON SOMALIA

    by DISSIDENT NATION on JULY 14, 2012 in POLITICS with 2 COMMENTS

     

    In its latest monitoring report on the status of Somalia’s weapons embargo, the United Nations’ task force for Somalia and Eritrea used their time and resources to deliver a grossly biased and incomplete report. At the head of this botched report is Matthew Bryden, a partisan pseudo-authority on Somalia who holds a passport to the unrecognized territory of Somaliland and serves as the coordinator of the monitoring group.

     

    The UN’s latest monitoring reports have been particularly tainted with bias, but the newest offering takes the cake, and should be enough to cast the mission aside as a joke.

     

     

    A rabid bias

     

    The latest monitoring report came to light just before its release some weeks ago during an anti-piracy conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It was rumored at that conference that the upcoming monitoring report on Somalia would be heavily biased against Puntland, and for no particular reason. Coordinator Bryden is no friend of Puntland, or Somalia, and it was hinted in Dubai that he would portray Puntland as menacing as he could, even at the cost of the truth. By the time of the Dubai-based conference in June, Bryden had already found a way to place pressure on the UAE to pull funding to Somalia’s only major internal anti-piracy program–the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF).

     

    By June, Puntland had already cleansed most of its coastal communities of its pirate plague and had launched the nation’s largest piracy rehabilitation program. The anti-piracy program was so successful that Fox News host and former US military man Oliver North traveled to Puntland to survey the forces some consider to be Somalia’s only answer to piracy.

     

    To the luck of Somalis and the misfortune of pirates, Puntland was able to bypass Bryden’s bias and has been promised further funding from the UAE and the international community in its assault on piracy. As I type, the PMPF are pursing the kidnappers of an NGO team in the town of Galkayo. If Bryden had his way, the families of these NGO workers would be waiting quite a while longer for relief.

     

    After bypassing one stretched accusation after another against the Somali anti-piracy program in Puntland, you will find not a single damning criticism against Somaliland, not even so much as a word on possible corruption. In the past year, Somaliland’s security forces have engaged in repeated violent skirmishes against local militias in the Sool and Togdheer provinces, with some attacks so intense that it caught the attention of Amnesty International. Even Somaliland’s year-long military exchange did not sound off alarms of a possible arms embargo violation to Bryden, whose wife’s family is coincidentally located in the Somaliland capital.

     

    When the report named off the Somali figures accused of corruption, the entire region of Somaliland was conveniently skipped over. Missing in the report were any mentions to public mismanagement in Somaliland despite a 2009 report by UAE’s The National newspaper that cited food aid theft and diversion in Burao, Somaliland’s second-largest city. Forgotten still, perhaps deliberately, was the recent court case in the Somaliland capital Hargeisa that saw harsh execution sentences handed out to 17 individuals belonging to the same marginalized clan.

     

    Questionable sources

     

    A large number of the sources Bryden uses in the report lead to defunct webpages, making verification impossible in several circumstances. When reporting on Puntland’s anti-terror operations, he uses sources like Galgala News, which was once the mouthpiece of Al-Shabaab weapons provider Mohamed Said ‘Atom.’ Bryden also admits to using non-local sources to report on Puntland, citing a lack of access to the region. The monitoring group’s source of choice for Puntland is Somalia Report, a small blog whose often dubious headlines have forced them to pull stories and make numerous apologies. In one instance he condemns the Puntland leader’s son for corruption yet uses a mouthpiece owned by the same individual as his source–clearly, Bryden is desperate to make any case he can.

     

    The truth

     

    Somalia’s Puntland-based anti-piracy program is the most effective tool yet in the fight against the criminal plague along Somalia’s shores, and Puntland arguably faces the largest number of internal and external threats from both militants and pirates today, and needs a proper security force to tackle these issues. Since 2004, Puntland has been the greatest sacrifice to the stabilization effort of Somalia, and without it the nation and world would be in grave danger from a myriad of threats now contained mostly to Somalia and being squeezed out even more every day.

     

    While this report may largely be toothless, at least we hope, it has threatened both the sovereignty of Somalia as well as its security and the security of the global community by scrutinizing Somalia’s defense capabilities. While the embargo may still serve its use in this transitional phase in Somalia, it should be used sparingly and only against unruly factions–not the groups trying to stabilize Somalia.

  19. Posted

    Can Oil be the Source of Somalia’s Renewal?

    by Dissident Nation on July 13, 2012 in Resources with No comments

    Six months ago, during the spudding of Somalia’s first exploratory well in over twenty years, Al-Jazeera’s Kamahl Santamaria asked audiences around the world if oil would be a curse or perhaps the renewal of Somalia. Six months on, and with the results of Somalia’s second exploratory within weeks or possibly days of delivering the nation’s most crucial answer, we look back on Santamaria’s question and ask ourselves if Somalia is ready, and if it will reap any rewards from this potentially transformational program.

     

     

    The resumption of exploration

     

    Since the founding of Somalia’s current Transitional Federal Government in 2004, various Somali factions have launched initiatives to harness their resources as their nation looked to be getting back on track for the first time in two decades. The TFG’s lifeline at the time, Puntland, locked early on to Africa Oil and Range Resources for the exploration of the Bari, Nugaal, and Sool provinces while the TFG entered into an agreement with the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) to explore Puntland’s southernmost region, Mudug.

     

    Not long after those agreements, other factions, principally Galmudug and Somaliland, began to look for exploration partners of their own, though still not to the level of success of their aforementioned counterparts.

     

    The bad

     

    Oil, while having economic incentives that few underestimate, has become a tool of conflict. Competition over the disputed province of Sool has escalated between various competing factions and Kenya has stepped up its challenge to Somalia’s territorial sovereignty in the pursuit of oil.

     

    This is just the first six months of exploration and nothing concrete about Somalia’s possible reserves has even been announced, making the potential for greater conflicts very real. There are also rumors that state the president of Puntland as using the leverage of his region’s potential oil wealth as a political bargaining chip.

     

    The good

     

    The rebuilding of Somalia through the massive revenues that oil brings has been a source of optimism for Somalis at home and abroad. Several months ago, one of the longest-standing clan feuds in Somalia was effectively ended through the intervention of Puntland’s leadership. During an address to clan elders in the province of Bari, President Farole promised the region’s people monthly stipends from the oil wells. Such bold declarations have become common from Puntland leaders, including the finance minister and the petroleum and minerals minister, both of whom injected talk of oil dollars into their ministries’ roles since the spudding of the first well in January. Violence in the regions of exploration has become almost non-existent in the months proceeding the latest drilling programs.

     

    Along with alleviating conflict through future incentives, the currently-explored regions have experienced small economic booms. Currencies have risen in value and new business opportunities have opened up across Puntland, to the credit of oil speculation and an influx of foreign investors. And since the world is constantly looking for ways to stop piracy through peaceful incentives, there can be no better way to do so than for the local economies to experience a miracle solution to poverty.

     

    Net effects

     

    While natural resources can no doubt turn a war-ridden country into a paradise and even erase the effects of war–much as it did for Angola in recent years, the results vary widely from place to place. You can either have a state like Australia or Qatar, who have used natural resources to vastly transform the landscapes of their nations, or you can end up like Nigeria, which cannot even provide discounted fuel for its citizens or provide for its poor, as we saw in the tragic events of this past week, and as we’ve seen for the past century in the notoriously oil-cursed state.

     

    When determining how Somalia will end up with a side of oil on its plate, one has to ask if Somalis are more like Australians or Nigerians when dealing with the resources available to them.

  20. Posted

    The recent discovery of oil deposits in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia,

    Jul 3, 2012 - ujawaab

    The recent discovery of oil deposits in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, could improve its population’s livelihoods as long as it is handled properly, officials and locals told IRIN.

    “The discovery of a valuable natural resource anywhere in Somalia is welcome and it should benefit all the people of Somalia. The finding of adequate oil in Puntland would change the lives of the people of Somalia for the better provided it was managed properly and Somali authorities learned from the experiences of other African countries where oil was found. Oil has the potential of bringing corruption and curses to a country if not handled well,” said Mohamed Abshir Waldo, an independent analyst and Somalia expert.

     

    Farah Ali Jama, Puntland Minister of Finance, said he was confident that any money from the oil would be handled properly and improve the lives of all Somalis. “I am 100 percent confident that this resource will improve people’s livelihoods,” he said, adding, “we will not fall into the mistakes made by others.”

    Jama said any funds from the oil find, which is expected to come on-stream soon, “will not fall into the pockets of any inpidual or group. This is for all of the Somali people wherever they may be.”

    However, there is as yet no legal framework in place for who will collect the money. “We are working on a legal framework for the relationship between the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] and the Puntland government on who will do what,” said the minister.

    He said the draft constitution, which is expected to be completed before August 2012, “will make it clear how resources will be pided”. Until then, “we [Puntland] will make sure that whatever money comes out of this will be handled transparently and every penny accounted for”.

    Great expectations

    Farah Hassan Atosh, a traditional elder and resident of Armo town, 28km northwest of the oil field, said: “We are expecting great things. It will change our lives for the better. Insh’Allah [God willing] we will never depend on others to give us food again.”

    He said that change was already happening in Armo town (population 25,000). “You can see many more people arriving every day and it can only add to the development of the town.”

    Drilling began in January 2012, and locals support the project, he said. “We not only support it, we will defend it from anyone who wants to stop it.”

    He said the project was also contributing to peace-building in the area. “They are employing many young men who would have been idle and easy prey for recruitment into militias.”

    Benefits

    Awad Husein Ali, the former district commissioner of Armo, told IRIN that residents were already feeling some of the benefits. “Businesses are starting in the area. We have a construction boom going, with hotels and big houses being built to accommodate the [oil] company employees and contractors.”

    Ali said that even the Somali shilling had started to appreciate against the dollar. “A few months ago we were exchanging US$1 for 32,000 Somali shillings. Today it is 23,000 Somali shillings. Who knows, our shilling may become like the Kuwaiti Dinar!”

    New infrastructure projects are expected to follow the oil, he said. “They are already putting in roads and hopefully, schools and hospitals will follow soon.”

    Oil has the potential of bringing corruption and curses to a country if not handled well.

    Reality check

    However, a regional analyst, who requested anonymity, told IRIN that although the Puntland administration had so far said all the right things, “it does not mean that all will be well when the money starts flowing”.

    He also questioned if Somalis had the expertise to deal with an international oil company. “It is not even clear how much the Somalis will get and how much the oil company will get. There needs to be transparency on how much money the company will get. Is it 50 percent, 20 percent or more?”

    He warned that, given the TFG’s poor record on handling finances, there had to be “a way to monitor how any money collected is spent. There should be a stringent legal framework in place to make sure that the money goes to the people of Somalia and not to inpiduals’ pockets.”

    Source: irinnews.org

  21. Posted

    THE KURDISH OIL BOOM AND SIMILARITIES TO PUNTLAND

    by DISSIDENT NATION on JUNE 28, 2012 in RESOURCES with NO COMMENTS

     

    The village of Shela, a collection of mud and stone huts, sprouts from the denuded landscape of Kurdistan like a clump of dun-coloured mushrooms. It is an eerily quiet place, its sole dirt track deserted, as if everyone has scurried inside and barred the doors before a Wild West shoot-out. There are cowboys about, but not the kind you are thinking of. Just over the hill, a pair of bright-orange gas flares bleed trails of acrid black smoke into a brilliant blue sky.

     

     

    Oil — lots of it — has been found in this corner of northern Iraq, an enclave of 5m people that is part of a shaky power-sharing coalition with Sunni and Shia Muslims. The discoveries may seem unremarkable. It is Iraq, after all. But Kurdistan, wedged uncomfortably between Turkey to the north, Iran and Syria to either side, and the rest of Iraq to the south, is different. For decades under Saddam Hussein, and before, the Kurds — ethnically and culturally different from their Arab countrymen — were brutalised, bombed and persecuted. The most notorious instance came in 1988, when Saddam gassed thousands of civilians in the village of Halabja, a massacre recognised by the Iraq High Court as an act of genocide. All of Iraq`s oil came from giant fields in the south and east. Kurdistan had to get by on herding goats, subsistence farming, and aid handouts from abroad.

     

    The downfall in 2003 of Saddam`s regime after the US-led invasion changed everything. The Kurdish authorities, endowed with new powers thanks to the new constitution, saw their chance. They flung open the doors to foreign explorers. The results have been astounding. The first 10 wells drilled hit paydirt. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the region holds up to 45 billion barrels — nearly as much as has been produced by Britain since North Sea oil first started pumping out in the 1960s. News travelled fast.

     

    Today, Kurdistan is in the grip of an old-fashioned oil boom. Planes flying into a gleaming new airport in Erbil, the capital, are full of foreign chatter: Texan drawl, Chinese staccato, the flat vowels of Yorkshire. They swap stories of gushers found and fortunes made.

     

    Five-star hotels are rising from building-site lots that only recently were little more than disused scrubland. Electricity runs virtually 24 hours a day, when five years ago the city was lucky to squeeze out a few hours from its dilapidated network. Baghdad still only gets by on four hours of power a day. And it`s peaceful. No coalition troops were killed in Kurdistan in the eight-year occupation. The last suicide bombing occurred in a remote village in 2009.

     

    Five years ago, Kurdistan produced 2,000 barrels a day from a single well. Today it churns out 250,000 barrels a day

     

    “It feels like Dubai 25 years ago,” says Tony Hayward, the former BP chief executive who left the company over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He resurrected his career as the boss of Genel Energy. One of Kurdistan`s new oil pioneers, he floated the firm in London last year after merging it with a shell company he set up with Nat Rothschild, the billionaire scion of the banking dynasty. They have already awarded themselves shares worth more than £100m — and it`s just getting started.

     

    Five years ago, Kurdistan produced 2,000 barrels a day from a single well. Today it churns out 250,000 barrels a day. With oil selling for over $120 a barrel, that equates to $900m a month in a country where average annual income barely tops $5,500. Hundreds of millionaires, and even a couple of billionaires, have already been made.

  22. Posted

    uchi;844387 wrote:
    Those slackers need to drill nugaal area as well, they are not sticking with their contract it seems. But nevertheless atleast shabeel is in area not under dispute, honestly I'm very much happy
    :)
    .

     

    How about you Somalia? Have you decided where you will build your beach house?

    You need to remember that when Faroole first came into power he held up the project for nearly a year to review the agreements

     

    Don't forget it takes time to bring in fake rigs lol into a country in turmoil which it was in 2007-2009

     

    The current drill bit is smaller for this well and the TD is shallower so the big news is 2 to 4 weeks away ;)

     

    Exciting times ahead

     

    After they drill Nugal I expect the Majors to takeover ;)

  24. Posted

    Carafaat;843713 wrote:
    Burnt Money,

     

    I am glad you joined our little oil discussion. There is nobody who has more knowledge on the matter then you.

    Ever since your uncle Cade Muuse gave you a contract for oil 'exploration' back in 2006, you and the Australians have Caused a Somali version of gold fever, several clan fights took place and without even any real production you guys seem to have cashed in on this speculation on the back of poor Somalis?

     

    Tell us Burnt Money, do you sleep well when it crosses your mind the damage your little project already caused? Knowing there Won't be any production coming decade while this 'fever' has caused deaths?

     

    Burnt Money, I am sure you know what these kind of speculative 'fevers', weather land, oil or gold fevers do to a country and peoples when speculation is propagated among ignorent commuties. Tell them Burnt Money,

    Tell them what an 'oil fever' is and tell how few can earn on the hopes of the many.

    the only reason I'm even dignifying you with a reply is to show all just how silly your are

     

    Range and Africa Oil have done a number of community projects in Puntland and have employed many puntlanders where possible to assist with the exploration which will only increase exponentially when the bigger companies come in to develop the natural resources further.

     

    Have you noticed how after decades of ignoring the poverty and famine in Somalia the international community have only recently saved thousands from starving to death...couldn't be because of the oil explortaion could it??? NOOO that would be cynical to think like that ;)

     

    I sleep VERY well at night knowing that I'm not only investing in a company that is developing oil resources but also saving lives literally and

    giving an entire nation the abilty to develop and grow without having to rely on handouts.

     

    of course given how somalia is such a clan based country not everyone will agree with the project. You will never please everyone. We have valid agreements with the elected government who support the company and the project despite the ignorant naysayers...Australia has one of the strongest economies in the world right now and its because of our mining industry..develop your natural resources so you can provide jobs and development...that's how the world operates mate

     

    due to the security and logistics involved it has taken a long time to get to this stage with many delays but I am proud of our directors and the people of Puntland for persevering with the exploration when no one else would

     

    President Cade Muuse had the foresight to make things happen for his people instead of waiting for help...his legacy will be the turning point for Somalia

  25. Posted

    Carafaat;843482 wrote:
    Ngonge, how long shall we wait? Since 2006 everytime Burty Money is out of money, the oil is found and produced circus starts. Oil exploration takes a long time, let alone oil production. But the issue here is that oil exploration is already attemps to use it as leverage in Somalias politics.

    LOL @ Carafaat

     

    don't worry i have plenty of money ;)

     

    if you like i can lend you some to buy a clue as you have no idea what is going on in PL or the world for that matter

     

    don't be envious...it will only consume you