Soma Oil & Gas hopeful in Somalia PSA applications

Privately owned UK company pursuing oil and gas exploration opportunities in Somalia Soma Oil and Gas has said it is hopeful that it will be in a position to make production sharing agreement applications once the Ministry of Petroleum & Mineral Resources is getting ready to receive them.

Already the ministry has approved the Quad & Block Design as well as the PSA Definition rules being approved.

The 2 year old company will be pegging its hopes on an agreement it holds with the Federal Government of Somalia where the company is expected to acquire 2D seismic offshore over an area of 122,000 sq km as well as create data room into which all available data will be placed.

Under the terms of the Seismic Option Agreement signed by the Ministry and the Company, Soma Oil & Gas has the right to apply for Production Sharing Agreements for an area of up to 60,000 sq km.

“Our efforts are now focused on the processing, reprocessing and interpretation of the seismic data in order to identify leads and prospects by the end of 2014.  At that point, Soma Oil & Gas will be ready to apply for PSAs in the areas of most interest to the Company,” CEO of Soma Oil & Gas Robert Sheppard said in June.

Already Soma Oil and Gas has already completed the acquisition of 2D seismic using the SeaBird Exploration with results expected by the end of the year.

The company adds that successful interpretation of on-board processed data  allowed areas of interest to be identified, and infill lines to be acquired in real time with a total of c. 4,000 line km of infill lines acquired.