Hassan Yuusuf Waal

By  HASSAN YUUSUFWAAL The Indian Ocean maritime boundary dispute between Somalia and Kenya has reached a new level of intensity. While Somalia is holding out an olive branch to de-escalate the spat Kenya has actually added fuel to the fire. On February, 17 2019, Kenya expelled Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya and recalled its ambassador to Mogadishu. On May 21 2019 Kenya detained and confiscated the passports of Somali ministers and MPs who were entering in Kenya. On May 29, 2019 Kenya banned cargo goods from Somalia and ordered all the planes from Somalia to be diverted to Wajir county airport for security checks. The motive behind Kenya’s unfortunate actions is to pressure Somalia to abandon a case submitted to International Court of Justice by Somalia. In 2014 Somalia took the matter to ICJ to settle maritime dispute between her and its neighbour after several attempts of alternative dispute resolution had failed. According to an article published by Reuters Kenya ...

By HASSAN YUUSUFWAAL Many studies point out that Somalia has oil and gas reserves in both onshore and offshore worth extracting. At a conservative estimate, offshore deposits could stand at over 100 billion barrels. Agip (now known as Eni) and Sinclair Oil Corporation started the oil exploration in Somalia in 1950s. From then on   a number of major oil companies were given licences to further explore. These efforts were disrupted as Somalia plunged into civil war in 1991.  However, the recent oil discoveries in Mozambique and Tanzania and a new seismic data collected from offshore Somalia by the seismic services company Spectrum has brought an influx of oil companies into Somalia. Companies lured into these new developments include Shell and ExxonMobil who held exploration concessions before the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime in 1991. They declared force majeure ( when contractual obligations are not met due to disruptive events ) after the country descend...