The Norwegian consultancy firm Spectrum Geo says all the data it gathered about Mogadishu’s oil stock in the Indian Ocean, and which was used to market to investors in London, was sourced entirely from Somali territory. In a brief statement on Monday, Graham Mayhew, the company’s Executive Vice President for Africa, Mediterranean and Middle-East Region, said it had been contracted to gather seismic data only in Somalia territory, avoiding the disputed regions contested by Kenya.
“Spectrum acquired a total of 20,185 km of 2D seismic data, in a grid stretching from south of the maritime border with the Federal State of Puntland, to north of the maritime border with the Republic of Kenya. All of this seismic data was acquired wholly within the maritime territory of the Federal Government of Somalia and no data were acquired within the area currently the subject of the maritime delimitation case with Kenya,” he said.
The company, though not responding directly, was referring to Kenya’s claim on Saturday that Somalia had “auctioned” oil blocks belonging to Kenya, during an oil conference on February 7 in London. Somali delegates had marketed their oil stock profile to investors, largely relying on seismic data gathered by Spectrum since 2015 when it signed a contract with Mogadishu to obtain additional data.
The data depicted oil stocks in 15 blocks, covering water depths of between 30 metres to four kilometres, analysed using what Spectrum called modern processing algorithms to achieve “optimal imaging of steeply-dipping extensional and compressional features and illumination of subtle amplitude anomalies.”