Somalia – Hafun-Bay/Gumbah Project

Unlocking East Africa’s Oil Frontier: Modernized Exploration Data for Somalia’s Hafun Bay

As the global energy industry re-evaluates the Somali margin, the Hafun Bay area stands out as one of the most promising segments of this last true frontier. By integrating modernized technical datasets with proven geological models, explorers can now de-risk this world-class petroleum system.

Geological Context & World-Class Prospectivity

The Hafun Bay area represents the offshore extension of the Dharoor/Sagaleh (Almado-Darror) Basin system. This region is geologically continuous with the prolific Say’un-Masilah and Sabatain basins in Yemen, sharing a nearly identical stratigraphic and structural evolution.

Key exploration elements include:

• Proven Analogs: The structural fabric is defined by Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous rift systems, mirroring the conjugate Yemeni basins that have produced billions of barrels of oil.
• Active Petroleum Systems: Satellite imagery and field studies have identified active oil seeps directly over toe-thrust structures, providing clear evidence of a working, oil-prone system.
• High-Quality Reservoirs: The Adigrat sandstone serves as a primary objective; at the Hafun Terrestre-1 well, this formation demonstrated excellent quality with 23% average porosity.
• Effective Seals: High-relief structures are protected by thick Tertiary shale seals and Middle Eocene anhydrites of the Taleh Formation, which provide regional top-seals for underlying reservoirs.

A Definitive Digital Database from Canesis Data

Restoring historical archives lost during decades of civil unrest, Canesis Data now offers the industry’s most comprehensive database for the Hafun Bay area, fully workstation-ready.

The Hafun-Gumbah Project inventory includes:

• Modernized 2D Seismic: A restored grid of 3,106 line kilometers of wave equation and frequency domain migrated data in SEGY format. This includes surveys acquired by CITGO (1982) and Cities Service Inc. (1983).
• Critical Well Control: Digital LAS logs and final geological 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).
• Onshore Basinal Coverage: For basin-wide evaluation, Canesis also provides over 3,900 km of seismic and log suites across the adjacent onshore blocks.
• Potential Fields Data: Digitized and gridded gravity and magnetic datasets derived from historical Conoco aeromagnetic surveys help resolve deep basement architecture and structural trends.

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.

Licensing Situation: The Shell/ExxonMobil Joint Venture and Hafun Bay/Gumbah

The licensing landscape for the Hafun Bay/Gumbah concession is anchored by the long-standing interests of Shell and ExxonMobil. Their pre-1991 concessions for blocks M3 through M7 were never formally canceled; instead, they remained “frozen” under force majeure during the civil war.

Recent developments have solidified this legal standing:

• The 2019 Amsterdam Agreement: The joint venture signed a formal agreement with the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to settle historical obligations.
• Legacy Payments: In late 2019, Shell and ExxonMobil paid $1.7 million in retroactive surface rental fees to the FGS, which was subsequently redistributed among Somali Federal Member States, including Puntland.
• 2020 Roadmap: An official roadmap was established to convert these legacy concessions into modern Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) aligned with the new national Petroleum Law.
• Current Status: While the joint venture retains its recognized legal claim and has modernized its framework with the central government, active physical exploration remains constrained pending final political alignment regarding coastal jurisdiction.

Plot of vectorised seismic line CS83-138

Plot of vectorised line CS81-19