Alternative Energy

Somaliland to Hold the First Bid Round for Hydrocarbon Exploration
Posted on Feb.19, 2009 by The Somaliland Ministry of Water and Mineral Resources

Amanda Worley
Friday 20 - 3:30

HARGEISA, Somaliland - The Somaliland Ministry of Water and Mineral Resources announced today that the Country’s first bid round for hydrocarbon concessions will open this February. The bid round will include eight concession blocks comprised of more than 89,624 square kilometers of onshore and offshore areas.
Indicators of hydrocarbon reserve potential are the naturally occurring oil and gas seeps at Dagah Shabel, and most historical wells in the area contain multiple zones with shows of oil and/or gas. For examples one locations of consideration is along the coast of Somaliland, which is analogous to the oil-producing basins in nearby Yemen. The coast has yielded several discoveries to date. Another location is Yemen’s Balhaf Graben Basin and Somaliland’s Berbera Basin, which stood out with the striking similarities in fault trends and structural complexity.
To prepare for the licensing round, the Geophysical Company, TGS-NOPEC acquired 5,300 kilometers of seismic, gravity and magnetic data in the offshore areas and 34,700 kilometers of high-resolution aeromagnetic data covering all known petroleum basins. This is the first geophysical data acquired in the area in almost 30 years.
I got to thinking, how has the land not been analyzed in 30 years if they suspect energy resources in the land? I researched it and found that when happening in Hargeisa and the rest of northwestern Somalia. Since the 1980’s the city has been under violent repression, destroyed my numerous bombs. “In 18 May 1991, secessionists in the Somaliland region had declared independence and reconstruction had begun there” (http://www.hargeisacity.50megs.com/). The city has undergone a massive facelift and over 99% of devastated commercial and residential homes have been rebuilt and are now in better condition.
The city is eager to begin said his Excellency, Mr. Qasim Sh. Yusuf Ibrahim, the Minster of Water and Mineral Resources in Somaliland, “We are very excited about the renewal of hydrocarbon exploration in Somaliland. The previous drilling has proven the existence of hydrocarbons and the reservoir class rock formations. With the help of the new geophysical data we can now map the structures needed to identify where the hydrocarbons are trapped.”

The timing for this historic bid round is as follows:
February 19, 2009 – Bid round opens
August 15, 2009 – Final submission of bids
December 15, 2009 – Expected award of concessions

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/somaliland-to-hold-the-first-bid-round-for-hydrocarbon-exploration,722509.shtml#