Oil Exploration in Puntland - Overview

Overview

Somalia has untapped reserves of numerous natural resources, including uranium, iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt and natural gas.

Due to its proximity to the oil-rich Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the nation has also long been believed to contain substantial unexploited reserves of crude oil. A 1992 survey of Northeast Africa by the World Bank and U.N. ranked Somalia second only to Sudan as the top prospective producer.

The Puntland region in northeastern Somalia, in particular, came to be regarded as the geological analogue of Yemen since both areas once formed a single landmass around 18 million years ago, before the Gulf of Aden rifted and separated the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. The oil reserves discovered in Yemen's Cretaceous and Jurassic formations were therefore also thought to potentially exist in Puntland, with petroleum geologists associating the Nugaal and Dharoor blocks with the South Yemen Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila basins, respectively.