Somalia's Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed announced on Saturday that he had signed seven production sharing agreements (PSAs) with Coastline Exploration Ltd covering deep-water offshore exploration blocks.
The minister had spoken of a "great moment" for Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world and plagued for decades by troubles of many kinds, and in particular by a deadly jihadist rebellion.
"The seismic exploration programs indicate that Somalia has the possibility of becoming a major oil and gas producing country," the minister said in a statement, assuring that the PSAs concluded with Coastline Exploration would "have a positive effect for the country", generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
But a few hours later, both President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, alias Farmajo, and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble declared these agreements "illegal".
This announcement, underlined the office of the president, contravenes the decree which prohibits the signing of any agreement with a foreign entity during the period of the elections.
"As a result, the agreement signed by the minister is null and void," the president said in a statement.
The Prime Minister for his part deemed this agreement "illegal and unacceptable" and assured on Twitter that he would take "all necessary measures to protect national resources".
Somalia has been immersed for many months in an electoral process which has brought President Farmajo and his Prime Minister to the brink of rupture on several occasions.
Coastline, based in Houston, Texas, called the Somalia accord a "watershed moment" for Somalia, which is still not a hydrocarbon producer despite exploration having begun in the 1950s.
"Somalia holds the largest sets of unexplored temperate water basins in the world," said the executive director of the American company W. Richard Anderson in a press release.
© 2022 AFP