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The World Bank is seeking expressions of interest from consultants by 15 June to help draw up a Somali Electricity Act. The project aims to promote the introduction of market discipline to the power sector and to create a favourable investment climate for private sector participation.The project will be financed by the World Bank Group through the Somalia Unlocking Sectoral Investment Programme.

The Somali parliament on 20 May passed the long-awaited petroleum bill, paving the way for the government to award petroleum licences. A statement from the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said the new law was based on the previous law, passed in 2008, with amendments to update certain provisions including a petroleum revenue-sharing agreement setting out how future revenues from the development of the petroleum industry will be shared between the federal government, the country’s six constituent member states and local communities.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources is seeking a consultant to assist with the development of the planned Somali Petroleum Authority (SPA). The SPA will act as the industry regulator; its mandate is outlined in the 2017 petroleum bill, which is awaiting parliamentary approval. The bill, amending the 2008 petroleum law, was approved by cabinet in 2017. In June 2018, the federal government and federal member states reached an agreement on ownership, management and sharing of Somalia’s oil and mining revenues.

Somalia launched an offshore licensing round on 7 February, offering 15 blocks in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Galmudug, Hirshabelle, South West and Jubaland states. Its promoters hope that similar geological structures to those harbouring gas offshore Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya are oil-bearing offshore Somalia. The event, which was live-streamed by Somali TV, aimed to underline to Somalis back home and in the diaspora the government’s commitment to transparency in exploring its oil and gas potential.

The federal government and federal states have agreed draft oil and mining regulations covering ownership and revenue sharing but Somalia is still a long way short of finalising the regulatory conditions needed for exploration to start. The framework authorises the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources to issue permits and manage petroleum and mining activities, but the Petroleum Law, which was updated in 2016, still needs to be ratified by parliament before any production-sharing agreement can be negotiated with the ministry.

Genel Energy and Sterling Energy have completed the acquisition of 1,000km of 2D seismic on the onshore Odewayne Block. Sterling said the acquisition was double the minimum 500km work obligation for the block’s third exploration period, for which Sterling is fully carried by Genel for all costs.

DP World Group of the United Arab Emirates has started work on a 30-year concession to develop and manage a multipurpose port in the Somaliland commercial capital of Berbera. The $442m project, to be developed in two phases, aims to create a new trading hub for East Africa. The project will include the construction of a 400-metre quay and 250,000m2 yard extension, and the creation of a free zone offering tax advantages and investment incentives.

Soma Oil & Gas executive director for Africa Hassan Khaire has been named as prime minister in the government of new Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Soma said Khaire had resigned from the board and relinquished all his shares in the company. Khaire, 46, had worked with Soma since the company was founded in 2013, and before that as director for the Norwegian Refugee Council for Somalia and East Africa, having come to Norway in the late 1980s as a refugee.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that it can hear the dispute between Somalia and Kenya over their shared maritime border in the Indian Ocean. The court found that it did have jurisdiction to adjudicate on the dispute, and that Somalia’s application is admissible (AE 339/19). Kenya now has until 18 December to file a counter-memorial.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague was due to rule on 2 February on whether it has jurisdiction to hear the dispute between Somalia and Kenya over their shared maritime border in the Indian Ocean. Somalia referred the dispute to the ICJ in 2014 (AE 325/18). Kenya maintains that the boundary should be a straight line running directly east from the point at which the two countries meet on land, while Somalia proposes that the boundary should follow a median line broadly equidistant from both coastlines in accordance with clause 15 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) decision to drop its 17-month long investigation into Soma Oil and Gas has comprehensively cleared the company of the corruption allegations levelled against it by the United Nations Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) and leaves hanging the question of why these allegations were made in the first place. The company is now free to finalise negotiations over production sharing agreements for a number of offshore blocks as soon as a new federal government is in place in Mogadishu. Its management then hopes to raise finance by farming out part of its interest and to start drilling as quickly as possible.

The Ministry of Energy and Minerals of the breakaway Republic of Somaliland announced on 19 November that it had signed a contract with BGP for a multi-client 2D seismic survey in the territory’s offshore waters. The programme will be financed through data purchases by international oil companies operating in Somaliland, the ministry said. Seismic operations will be managed and overseen by the ministry, with support from ministries such as the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Environment. A similar survey was acquired by TGS-Nopec in 2008.

Somalia plans to launch a licensing round in Q2 2017 offering acreage in the central and southern offshore. Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources permanent secretary Jamal Mursal told Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Upstream conference in Cape Town on 1 November that Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil intended to resume work on the licences they placed in force majeure in 1990, while BP had relinquished its former onshore acreage.

After more than a year, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has dropped an investigation into allegations that explorer Soma Oil & Gas bribed officials in Somalia. Prompted by a court challenge, the SFO took the exceptional step of informing Soma that there was insufficient evidence of criminality to make a prosecution possible. However, it is continuing with a ten-month investigation into a further set of so-far-secret allegations also linked to the company’s Somali operations. On 12 October, one of the UK’s most senior judges refused Soma’s judicial review application to force the SFO to take a final decision on whether to prosecute or to disclose the nature of its new enquiry.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold public hearings in the maritime border dispute between Somalia and Kenya on 19-23 September in The Hague. The hearings will concern solely the preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the court and the admissibility of the application raised by Kenya in October 2015, an ICJ statement said. Kenya maintains that the Indian Ocean boundary should be a straight line running directly east from the point at which the two countries meet on land.