Turkey Dispatches New Drillship to Waters off the Coast of Somalia
Turkey has announced plans to dispatch one of its drillships to waters off Somalia, the latest development in the two countries' strengthening ties.
The drillship Cagri Bey (ex name West Draco), operated by state oil company Türkiye Petrolerii, is getting under way for an E&P project in the Arabian Sea. At a departure ceremony Monday, energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar said that the voyage plan calls for going the long way around, westbound through the Mediterranean and Strait of Gibraltar, south around the Cape of Good Hope, and back up the east coast of Africa to reach Somalia. Drilling should commence in April, he said.
Turkey's navy will provide security arrangements for the ship during its operations in the Horn of Africa area, where there are multiple threat actors and overlapping risks. The warships TCG Sancaktar, TCG Gökova and TCG Bafra will reportedly be assigned to the task force.
The drillship's deployment fulfills the promise of a production sharing agreement between Ankara and Mogadishu in 2024. The arrangements are favorable for Turkey, which will get paid back first with most of the initial revenue from the project before substantial funds accrue to the Somali government.
Turkey's seismic ship Oruc Reis visited the region in 2024 to acquire 3D seismic surveys of subsea formations, and spent nine months collecting data in the region. The campaign moved quickly into data analysis and plans for drilling.
The general location of the target region was not disclosed, but AIS data provided by Pole Star Global shows that Oruc Reis concentrated its survey efforts in two spots off Central Somalia: one just off Hobyo, a notorious pirate hub during the heyday of Somali piracy; and a second just to the south, off the coast of Mareeg. The area is hundreds of miles from the Houthi-related risks in the Gulf of Aden.
Courtesy Pole Star Global
The agreement is part of a push by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to assert more sovereign control over Turkey's energy supply, which is heavily dependent upon imports from Russia. A large-scale drilling program in the Black Sea, within the Turkish EEZ, has yielded significant natural gas resources; the discoveries off Turkey's northern coast will help reduce the amount of energy that the nation has to buy from Russian state gas giant Gazprom.
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The new activity off Somalia coincides with an increase in tension between Turkish and Israeli interests in the Horn of Africa. At the end of December, Israel formally recognized the breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent nation, much to the displeasure of the Somali federal government and its Turkish backers. In addition, the long-running al-Shabaab insurgency - an Islamist uprising that seeks to impose Sharia law - remains a persistent threat to Somali government stability, holds large swathes of the countryside, and has approached the capital.
Last week, Turkey dispatched a squadron of F-16 fighters to the airport near Mogadishu, and a delivery of tanks was spotted arriving at the port as well. The voyage of drillship Cagri Bey and her escorts will bring a small task force of Turkish Navy ships into the theater to add to already-present Turkish land and air forces.