Some of the numbers presented in this website may not be the most recent available
globalshift.co.uk - copyright © 2009 to 2025; All rights reserved
S. AND E. AFRICA
Captive warthog
Brief history of the country
Somalia (the Federal Republic of Somalia) borders Kenya and Ethiopia (west), Djibouti and the Gulf of Aden (north), and the Indian Ocean (east).
The ancient Land of Punt and later empires in the Horn of Africa traded with Mediterranean powers until Islam was introduced in the Middle Ages and Somali sultanates took over based in Zeila. Successive Imamates controlled large areas and fought numerous battles with Ethiopia.
From 1884 the UK and Italy took control establishing British and Italian Somaliland (in the north and south respectively). A Dervish state rebelled in the 1910s but were finally defeated by the British in 1920. During World War 2 Italian fascists tried to overrun the north but were defeated in 1941.
After the war the UN granted Italy trusteeship of the south whilst the north remained a British protectorate. They united in 1960 to form the independent Somali Republic. A military coup in 1969, a war with Ethiopia in 1977, and an ailing economy all led to the Civil War in 1991 when Somalia became a failed state. Two areas, Somaliland and Puntland, declared independence but both are unrecognised.
In 2004 a Transitional Federal Government was set up in the south to try to re-establish law but threats from Islamic groups, such as Al-Shabaab, continue. Somalia has an economy based on livestock and overseas worker remittances.
Oil and gas summary
Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, has a very long coastline from the Gulf of Aden in the north, joining with the Indian Ocean on the east. Onshore the terrain comprises plateaus, plains and highlands.
The intra-cratonic Ogaden Basin, which covers much of Ethiopia is a rift system active during the Late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic. The eastern edge of this basin, which has seen discoveries in Ethiopia, extends into southern Somalia but no discoveries have been made here and civil wars have prevented activity for over two decades.
A number of east-west trending rift basins of similar age are also present in Somaliland and Puntland, including the Adigala basin in the west, the Darin basin in the east and the Nugaal basin in the south. All have had oil seeps and oil shows in wells reported over the years.
Some exploration activity recommenced in 2012 in both of these autonomous regions since the security situation is more stable than the south.
However, there are still no identified indigenous oil or gas resources, either onshore or offshore. Only around 70 wells have been drilled in the country (8 offshore) owing to the persistent unrest.
Recent successful drilling in Ethiopia and Kenya and analogy with oil productive basins in Yemen suggests potential in both the south and north of the country but no oil or gas production is forecast by Globalshift at least in the short and medium term.
SOMALIA
Map and National Flag
South and East Africa
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Mogadishu
9.3 mm
637,657
None
None
5.8
None
Government
The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) governed until 2012 when the Federal Parliament of Somalia was inaugurated. The government is headed by a president to whom a cabinet, led by a Prime Minister, reports. However, the country remains unstable.
In 2006 the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) had imposed Shari'a law but were driven out with Ethiopian and African Union help. The ICU splintered and parts of it continues its insurgency. Al-Shabaab in particular has seized control of towns in central and southern Somalia.
The Federal Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources is the government department in Somalia responsible for oil and gas resources.
The autonomous governments of Somaliland and Puntland have also tried to kick-start exploration programs.
Geology and History of Exploration
Somalia is underlain by the northwestern edge of the Somali Plate which is bounded by the African, Arabian and Indian Plates. The Somali Plate began to form in the Late Cretaceous by rifting of the African Plate along the East African Rift.
The African Plate west of the rift is called the Nubian Plate. The Somali Plate in Somalia is bounded on the west by the East African Rift, which stretches south from the triple junction in the Afar Depression of Djibouti and Eritrea. The northern boundary is the Aden Ridge along the coast of Saudi Arabia.
Within the Somali plate are intra-cratonic rift basins. The Ogaden Basin, which covers a large part of Ethiopia, developed in response to complex rifting active during the Late Palaeozoic to Mesozoic. Thick Permian to Cretaceous sequences, which principally occur in the southwestern and central parts of the basin, have proven petroleum potential.
Reservoir rocks are mainly Permian to Lower Jurassic sandstones and limestones. Source rocks are organic-rich Permian, Lower Jurassic and Jurassic lacustrine and marine shales. A small part of the Ogaden basin extends into southern Somalia.
Several northwest trending rift basins are also present in Somaliland and Puntland filled with restricted marine sequences. These basins include the Adigala in the west, the Darin and Dharoor in the east and the Nugaal in the south.
They were created during rifting events that began to split Gondwanaland in the Middle Jurassic and are analogous to oil and gas bearing basins in Yemen across the Gulf of Aden within the Arabian plate.
Jurassic sandstones are the main reservoir targets overlying organic-rich Jurassic shales and marls which are thought to be potential source rocks. A number of other layers also produce in Yemen and rocks of similar age may be prospective in Somalia.
However, when the East African Rift was developing, the earlier Gondwanan rifts were subject to uplift and erosion which may have destroyed older traps.
History - Oil exploration in Somalia commenced around 1920 when Anglo-American conducted a geological expedition to the Horn of Africa. There was limited shallow drilling around oil seeps in the 1930s but the first true exploration well was not drilled until 1956 in former British Somaliland.
Up to 1991, when the Somali civil war began, around 60 onshore wells had been drilled across the country, mostly in the northern basins. In the 1950s Stanvac’s well on the Daga Shebel seep in Somaliland near the Gulf of Aden coast found significant oil shows.
In the 1960s gas flows were registered in Sinclair’s Agfoi-1 well near the Indian Ocean coast in southern Somalia. The last well to be drilled in Somalia before the civil war was Conoco’s Nogal-1 well which encountered oil shows in the Nugaal-1 basin in Puntland.
Eight offshore wells were drilled in the Gulf of Aden between 1974 and 1986 but none of these found oil or gas. The Gulf of Aden is also unproductive in Yemen.
There was no exploration activity for 20 years during the war and its aftermath but a flurry of licensing and exploration programs were announced in 2012 in Somaliland and Puntland where the political situation had become more stable. However, no activity is occurring in southern Somalia where security remains a major problem.
As yet, no wells in any of Somalia’s basins have been commercially successful for oil or gas. Although a number of areas have potential, particularly in the north within basins analogous to those in Yemen, the geological and political risks are high.