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Executive director to visit Puntland for talks
* Says Canadian partner to start drilling by Q4 '09
NAIROBI, May 20, 2009 - Australian explorer Range Resources said piracy
will not deter it from exploring for hydrocarbons off chaotic northern
Somalia.
The independent company won a deal in 2005 giving it concession rights
to all minerals and petroleum in the country's semi-autonomous Puntland
region, an area that geologists say has a high chance of containing
commercial oil reservoirs.
Puntland has been relatively unscathed by a two-year Islamist insurgency
that has rocked Somalia's south and central regions. But it is a base
for many of the pirates who have been attacking vessels in the busy
shipping lanes offshore.
"Other than potential implications on insurance costs, we don't think
piracy has a huge impact. A number of vessels have been attacked
offshore but they haven't had escorts," Range's executive director Peter
Landau told Reuters late on Tuesday.
He said that he would be visiting Puntland in the next few weeks to meet
its leadership and discuss oil and gas projects.
"If you're going to do offshore seismic then you would only do it with
the support of the Puntland government and the seismic vessel will have
an armed escort, preferably a government vessel," Landau said by
telephone from Dubai.
Onshore, he added, Range's joint venture partner Africa Oil Corp is also
in talks with the Puntland authorities and hopes to begin drilling in
the fourth quarter of this year.
The Canadian company had started seismic mapping in a region it believes
has good prospects of holding large oil deposits. Geologically-similar
formations in Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden, hold nearly 4 billion
barrels.
Africa Oil Corp has agreed to invest $50 million in exploration in
return for an 80 percent stake in the area's Nogal and Dharoor blocks.
Range holds the remaining 20 percent.
Landau said the Canadian firm had spent $22.5 million working in Dharoor.
Nogal is still to be explored. Africa Oil raised $35 million through a
private shares placement in April.
In January, some former staff members in Puntland criticised the
Canadian company for failing to pay their salaries, but Landau said the
claims were false and had come from aggrieved sub-contractors.
Africa Oil could not immediately be reached for comment. (Editing by
Daniel Wallis and Peter Blackburn)
Source: Reuters, May 20, 2009
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