Somaliland To Attend Oil Conference

Somaliland To Attend Oil Conference

Nairobi Somaliland will attend a conference on Oil exploration in East Africa to be held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

The conference which is sponsored by the Kenyan Energy department will bring together representatives from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia, Seychelles, Madagascar and Mozambique. 

According to The Reporter (Addis Ababa), the meeting will allow the participating nations to engage with investors, streamline contract negotiations and explore other areas of natural resources development. 

At least thirty seven international companies are expected to send teams to the conference in order to present a thorough review of their technological and engineering experiences. These companies include, Total, Tullow Oil, ONGC, Anadarko, Cairn India, Afren, Sasol Petroleum International, Apache, Africa Oil Corporation, Lion Petroleum. 

There has been extensive oil and natural gas surveys and exploration in Africa. Spearheaded mainly by China's need to supply its growing industrial sector and the discovery of Oil in Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, along with new surveys indicating a huge oil reserves off the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia, the oil and gas industry is focused on Africa. 

The current political situation in the straits Hormuz and Iran's nuclear stance has added further urgency to the search for new sources of oil and natural gas. 

Somaliland has recently conducted an extensive survey through NGS-TOPEC. The results of these surveys appear to be very promising. Meanwhile, in the self-administering region of Puntland, drilling for oil has already commenced in areas near the Indian Ocean.