Oil and gas in Somalia: the deals, the law and the first offshore well

The short version

Oil companies first searched Somalia in the 1940s and 1950s. In the late 1980s firms including Amoco, Chevron, Conoco and Eni held concessions from the government of Siad Barre, and declared "force majeure" when the war began, suspending their work without giving up their rights (Goobjoog News; Hiiraan Online, November 2007). There was almost no exploration for about 20 years, until new licences were announced in Somaliland and Puntland in 2012 (Goobjoog News). See Trade: exports and imports.

Who is in charge

• The Somalia Petroleum Corporation, owned by the federal government under the Ministry of Natural Resources, was set up in 2007 after the Transitional Federal Government passed a petroleum law (Wikipedia, Somalia Petroleum Corporation).
• The Petroleum Law was approved in February 2020. It created the Somali Petroleum Authority as the regulator, which issues licences and reviews production sharing agreements (S&P Global, 4 August 2020). One summary of the law says it gives 55 percent of oil revenue to the federal government and 45 percent to the member states (Wikipedia, Mineral industry of Somalia).
• Somalia's first offshore licensing round, for seven blocks, opened on 4 August 2020 and closed on 12 March 2021 (S&P Global; Wikipedia, Mineral industry of Somalia).

The disputed deals

A 2021 investigation reported on an earlier proposed agreement that would have given Liberty and Coastline access to all seven offshore blocks (DeSmog, 8 April 2021).

The Turkey agreements and Curad-1

• 7 March 2024: Somalia and Turkey signed an agreement in Istanbul on cooperation in oil and gas (Daily Sabah).
• 19 July 2024: Turkey's state oil company TPAO signed an exploration and production agreement for three offshore blocks (Hürriyet Daily News; Garowe Online, 23 April 2025).
• October 2024 onward: the Turkish survey ship Oruç Reis mapped 4,464 square kilometres across the three blocks (Drilling Contractor, 31 August 2026).
• 10 April 2025: a second agreement covered three onshore blocks of about 16,000 square kilometres (Daily Sabah).
• April 2026: the drillship Çağrı Bey began drilling Curad-1, about 370 km off Mogadishu, in about 3,500 metres of water, aiming for a total depth of about 7,500 metres. About 470 to 480 people worked on the drilling and support ships (Drilling Contractor).
• 29 October 2026: Somali Petroleum Authority chairman Abdulkadir Aden Mohamed said the drill had passed into Early Cretaceous rock, "where the signs showing that oil is present begin", with about 2,000 metres left. He hoped to reach the target in December. Rock samples are being studied jointly by Turkish experts and the authority (Dawan Africa, 29 October 2026).

Revenue terms. In April 2025 the Swedish-based site Nordic Monitor published what it said was the July 2024 agreement. It reported that Turkey could take up to 90 percent of yearly output to recover its costs, and that Somalia would receive 5 percent of revenue. Somali lawmakers who approved the deal told Nordic Monitor they had not seen the document, and the government did not comment (Garowe Online, 23 April 2025).

Somaliland and Puntland

Both have issued their own licences. Genel Energy received an onshore exploration licence from Somaliland in August 2012. Its foreign staff left in September 2013 over security threats, and it later returned. Africa Oil took overlapping rights from Puntland in the Nugaal valley in the same period, and a 2014 UN report warned that exploration there risked fuelling conflict (UCL, January 2023; Sweet Crude Reports). In December 2022 the federal government declared Genel's operations in Somaliland illegal, saying only federal authorities can grant oil permits (Bloomberg, 28 December 2022; JURIST, December 2022). See The economy of Somaliland.

Sources disagree

• The law's year. Most sources date the Petroleum Law to February 2020; some give 2019 (S&P Global; Wikipedia, Mineral industry of Somalia).
• When Curad-1 finishes. In August 2026 the authority's director general expected drilling to end by late September; in late October its chairman said December (Drilling Contractor; Dawan Africa).
• The size of Turkey's offshore blocks. Reports give about 5,000 square kilometres for each of the three blocks, or 15,000 in total, while the seismic survey covered 4,464 square kilometres (Drilling Contractor; Hürriyet Daily News).