Somalia
Hafun-Bay/Gumbah
Hafun-Bay/Gumbah Project Overview, showing seismic and well data.
(Plots of highlighted seismic lines are shown below)
Unlocking East Africa’s Oil Frontier: Modernized Exploration Data for Somalia’s Hafun Bay
As exploration interest intensifies across the Somali margin, geoscientists are revisiting one of the world’s last true frontier provinces. While historical archives were largely lost during decades of civil order collapse, Canesis Data has successfully restored and modernized critical exploration datasets, making them workstation-ready for the first time in thirty years.
The Hafun Bay Project: A Digital Renaissance
The centerpiece of this offering is the Hafun-Gumbah Project, covering the offshore extension of the prolific Daroor/Sagaleh Basin. This dataset provides the high-resolution structural and stratigraphic calibration necessary to de-risk one of East Africa’s most promising petroleum systems.
What’s available now:
- Vectorized 2D Seismic: A comprehensive grid of 3,106 line kilometers of wave equation and frequency domain migrated 2D seismic data (SEGY format).
- Digital Well Control: Modernized logs and technical reports for five pivotal wells: Gardafui-1 (GF-1), Ras Binnah Marine-1X (RBM-1X), Gumbah-1, Hafun Terrestre-1 (HAT-1), and Hafun-1 (HA-1).
- Comprehensive Well Data: Deliverables include final geological reports, dip tadpole plots, biostratigraphy, and geochemistry studies, alongside digitized curves for GR, Sonic, and Density.
- Regional Gravity & Magnetic Data: Gridded datasets derived from historical aeromagnetic surveys to help resolve basement architecture.
Geological Context & Prospectivity
The Hafun Bay area is geologically continuous with the Say’un-Masilah Basin in Yemen, a conjugate system known for giant oil discoveries.
Key exploration plays include:
- Mesozoic Rift Systems: Tilted fault blocks containing Upper Jurassic and Upper Cretaceous objectives.
- Active Petroleum Systems: Preliminary satellite studies have identified active oil seeps located directly over toe-thrust structures, providing direct evidence of a working oil-prone system.
- Source and Reservoir: Projections indicate the presence of mature Upper Jurassic marine shales (Uarandab/Daghani equivalents) sourcing high-quality reservoirs like the Adigrat sandstone. HAT-1 alone recorded an average porosity of 23% in reservoir intervals [Source Context].
- AVO Anomalies: Recent interpretation highlights slope fan plays in the Oligo-Miocene syn-rift section showing promising AVO brightening.
A Proven Investment: Licensing & Regional Data
The licensing landscape is stabilizing, with the Federal Government of Somalia and the Puntland Autonomous Region coordinating efforts to attract international investment. The value of this dataset is already recognized by industry leaders licensing it.
For those seeking a basin-wide evaluation, Canesis also offers extensive data coverage for the onshore part of the basin, including over 2,400 km of seismic and log suites across Blocks 27, 28, 29, 31, and 34.
Plot of vectorised seismic line CS83-138
Plot of vectorised line CS81-19