Pur­su­ing Black Gold in So­ma­lia

The fol­low­ing ca­bles demon­strate how the oil com­pa­nies were pur­su­ing So­mali crude, and some of the dif­fi­cul­ties they en­coun­tered along the way.

1. “Chevron Drilling Site in North­ern So­ma­lia.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Dji­bouti to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 31 March 1988. Ca­ble Num­ber: Dji­bouti 0711. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. This ca­ble refers to Chevron’s op­er­a­tions in So­ma­lia. “Chevron Oil has be­gun ex­ploratory drilling at the first of two sites in north­ern So­ma­lia…An­other Chevron em­ployee, a So­mali-born US cit­i­zen…be­lieves the [So­ma­liland Na­tional Move­ment] has taken a firm de­sci­sion not [re­peat] not to ha­rass the oil op­er­a­tion in any way. The SNM be­lieves the oil (which So­ma­lis and Dji­boutians ap­par­ently are con­vinces is pre­sent in ma­jor quan­ti­ties) should be ex­ploited for the ben­e­fit of the So­mali peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly in the north. From a tech­ni­cal stand­point, that can only take place in the 1990’s, when Siad Barre – and pre­sum­ably his gov­ern­ment – is gone…He be­lieves many of the al­leged ter­ror­ist in­ci­dents in north­ern So­ma­lia were re­ally the work of the sol­diers them­selves. Ill-fed and fre­quently un­paid be­cause of the cor­rup­tion…these sol­diers of­ten ex­ag­ger­ate and some­times cre­ate, bom­ing in­ci­dents and fire­fights in or­der to be able to jus­tify more sup­port from Mo­gadishu.”

2. “FY-88 Se­cu­rity As­sis­tance Fund­ing Trips Up Mil­i­tary Re­view Com­mit­tee (MRC) Meet­ing.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Mo­gadishu to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 2 Feb­ru­ary 1988. Ca­ble Num­ber: Mo­gadishu 01297. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. This ca­ble is an overview of US-So­mali mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion. While im­por­tant mil­i­tar­ily, the last page men­tions “the cap­ture of 2 dis­si­dents [and the pur­suit of] 3 oth­ers whose ob­jec­tive had been to sab­o­tage U.S. oil drilling ac­tiv­i­ties. [So­mali De­fense Min­is­ter Aden Ab­dul­lahi Nur] at­trib­uted their train­ing and sup­port to Ethiopia and claimed the goal was to close down the ex­ploratory drilling by Conoco along the Gulf of Oman. Em­bassy will at­tempt to cor­rob­o­rate this re­port.”

3. “Con­ver­sa­tion with Out­go­ing Japan­ese Am­bas­sador.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Mo­gadishu to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 6 Feb­ru­ary 1989. Ca­ble Num­ber: Mo­gadishu 01519. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. This short ca­ble pro­vides an overview of Japan’s re­la­tion­ship with So­ma­lia, from re­hab­bing So­mali ra­dio sta­tions to open­ing a new em­bassy. Of note, “Nip­pon Min­ing (Ky­oto) has in­vested in shares of the Conoco Oil ex­plo­ration pro­ject in north­ern So­ma­lia, on a strictly fi­nan­cial ba­sis.”

4. “Travel Re­stric­tions.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Mo­gadishu to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 11 March 1990. Ca­ble Num­ber: Mo­gadishu 02441. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. Am­bas­sador Frank Crigler’s travel had been re­stricted by the So­mali gov­ern­ment. Dur­ing a March 7, 1990 tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter guar­an­teed Crigler free travel. Crigler chose to “test” this pol­icy by vis­it­ing Cono­co’s site at Las Anod.

5. “Winds of Peace Blow­ing Even in North­west So­ma­lia.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Mo­gadishu to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 15 March 1990. Ca­ble Num­ber: Modgadishu 02658. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. Crigler’s re­port on his trip to the Conoco site. Most of the ca­ble is ded­i­cated to se­cu­rity is­sues, how­ever Crigler noted: “North­west So­ma­li­a’s ace-in-the-hole may be oil. Conoco has spent dols. 16 mil­lion drilling near Las Anod, with no re­sults so far (at 9800 feet) but they re­main op­ti­mistic.”

6. “So­ma­lia Sum­mary, Num­ber 10 of 1990.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Mo­gadishu to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 12 April 1990. Ca­ble Num­ber: Mo­gadishu 03595. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. This overview of So­mali events men­tions Cono­co’s aban­don­ment of its first well near Las Anod. “Af­ter re­peated dif­fi­cul­ties they man­aged to reach a depth of 10,750 feet be­fore los­ing a por­tion of the drill string down the hole. Conoco So­ma­lia Pres­i­dent Ray­mond Marc­hand and his col­leagues are dis­ap­pointed that they were not able to ex­plore po­ten­tial source rock to a depth of 14,300 feet.”

7. “Of­fi­cial In­for­mal No. 021. Min­is­ter of Min­er­als and Wa­ter Re­sources Mem­con.” Ca­ble from US Em­bassy in Mo­gadishu to State De­part­ment Head­quar­ters. 9 Oc­to­ber 1990. Ca­ble Num­ber: Mo­gadishu 08737. Source: Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­lease (2006-01-288) to Keith Year­man. This ca­ble re­ports on Am­bas­sador James K. Bish­op’s meetng with Ab­d­i­rizak A. Elmi, Min­is­ter of Min­er­als and Wa­ter Re­sources. “The Min­is­ter in­di­cated that he en­joys do­ing busi­ness with the Amer­i­can com­pa­nies search­ing for pe­tro­leum in So­ma­lia. He spoke fa­vor­ably of sev­eral of their lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Due to de­part for meet­ings with the [In­ter­na­tional Bank for Re­con­struc­tion and De­vel­op­ment] in a few days, the Min­is­ter plans to visit Hous­ton, where he has ap­point­ments with Conoco and Pectin. Not­ing the bull­ish at­ti­tude of the Amer­i­can com­pa­nies, Elmi said they all want the Har­ge­sia ex­plo­ration con­ces­sion, as their ge­ol­o­gists have con­cluded that it is the most likely site for a sub­stan­tial find.”

 

To be con­tin­ued…………..next week