Somali government advances offshore plans despite Soma investigation

Norway’s Spectrum ASA has announced an agreement to acquire 28,000km of long offset 2D seismic data offshore southern Somalia. Spectrum’s survey will cover areas licensed to Pecten, a joint venture of Shell and ExxonMobil, which have been under force majeure since 1992. It will also manage and market 20,000km of 2D data gathered and processed by Soma Oil & Gas in 2014, which it says the survey is designed to complement. Soma – a UK company chaired by former Conservative party leader Lord (Michael) Howard – is giving the results of its survey to the federal government in return for the right to pre-emptively choose 12 blocks.