Oil and Gas Security in Puntland

Skipping over the bulk of the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group’s (SEMG) flawed recent report on the weapons embargo on Somalia, we were able to get a general idea of the length to which the state of Puntland has gone to safeguard its economic future. What we found was a well-equipped (by all legal means) authority that could handle the security needs of the region.

Puntland is not at all wrong for wanting security for these oil and gas interests, Al-Shabaab militants repeatedly threaten the region’s vital oil exploration project with attacks. We have looked through the data provided by the monitoring group in their latest report and found out that the security of the oil and gas exploration program in Puntland is taken very seriously.

A special outfit called the Exploration Security Unit (ESU) is now fully operating in Puntland. The ESU is a relatively new project that was founded with the help of Eric Prince, founder of the Abu Dhabi-based private military company Xe, formerly known as Blackwater.

The ESU likely operates alongside the Puntland Maritime Police Forces (PMPF), and is based in a camp in Qaw just a few dozen miles west of Bosaso, the long-rumored end destination of a pipeline serving the Dharoor Valley. The camp has over 70 tents, and is outfitted with a modern operational command center, a control tower, an airstrip, a helicopter deck, and has enough capacity for 1,500 men–about 1,000 of whom are already trained in the program. These are assets not seen among any other conventional force in Somalia, including the African Union forces and the Ethiopian forces.

Equipment is flown into the base from Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. All of this is of course within Puntland’s legal right as a signatory of the Somali roadmap and an ally in both the War on Terror. And the fight against piracy, and the places of origin of these weapons are proven partners of Somalia and the international community.

The top financier of this entire program is the UAE, which provides $2 million a month for operational costs, making Puntland’s military budget almost equal to Djibouti. With its air assets, Puntland’s military capability is greater than that of the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, though just as necessary if not more so. And though the UAE denies its direct involvement, some of its highest-ranking figures, including the crown prince, have been reported to maintain close ties with the development of the Puntland security initiative.

Africa Oil, an exploration company based in Canada, has also gone to its own lengths to help the security situation. The explorer assigned South Africa’s Pathfinder Corporation to consulting duties with Puntland’s ESU. Africa Oil is also reported to have provided direct funding for the ESU at times, understandably so. Exploration is taken very seriously by all parties, perhaps more so than piracy at times, though it never seems that way in official capacity.

While Puntland’s security apparatus has been relatively strong for some time, it was in late 2011 that efforts to secure outside support were redoubled. It was also around that time when all of the major infrastructure and logistics preparations for security arrangements were finalized, just ahead of major exploration. When assessing the cost to drill in Puntland, the security headache and the resources that went into it were just as exhausting, if not more so, than the actual task of drilling.

There is a regional and global interest in making sure that Somalia has an economic lifeline after it stabilizes. The UAE has an interest in partnering up with a future oil-producing Somalia much in the same way that it provides industrial services to Western nations. In 2008 the UAE-based industrial giant Lootah Group had a $48 million plan to modernize Puntland’s commercial services and setup a free trade zone. No one was ever certain how far those plans got, but the UAE’s interest in Somalia has never waned, and in fact may have manifested itself in a much bigger way.

{DN Staff Writers}

DissidentNation.com