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Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 20:38:00 EST
From:         CROSEN%BGSUOPIE.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject:      raison d'Somalia

Greetings,

THis L.A. Times article recently appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major oil
companies are sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to
explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.

That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield
significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the US-led military mission
can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.

According to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, nearly two-thirds
of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron,
and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-US President
Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in
January 1991.  Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the
most promising concessions are hoping the Bush administration's decision to
send US troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help
protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

Officially, the administration and the State Department insist that the US
military missions is strictly humanitarian.  Oil industry spokesmen
dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran
East Afrrican analysts and several prominent Somalis that President George
Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia at least in part
by the US corporate oil stake.

But corporate and scientific documents disclose that the American
companies are well-positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential
oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified.  ANd the State Department
and US military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has
done more than simply sit back and hope for peace.

Conoco Inc.,the only major multinational corporation to maintain a
functioning office in Mogadishu tHroughout the past two years of
nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the US government's role
in the UN sponsored humanitarian military effort.

Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia
reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad
Barre's fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be
transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the US
Marines landed in the capital, with Bush's special envoy using it as his
temporary headquarters.  In addition, the president of the company's
subsidiary in Somalia won high official praise for serving as the
government's volunteer "facilitator" during the months before and during
the US intervention.

Describing the arrangement as a "business relationship," John Geybauer,
spokesman for COnoco Oil in Houston, said the company was acting as a
"good corporate citizen and neighbor" in granting the US government's
request to be allowed to rent the compound.

But the close relationship between Conoco and the US intervention force has
left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the
blurred line between the US government and the large oil company, leading
mny to liken the Somali operation toa miniature version of Operation
Desert Storm, the US-led military effort in January 1991 to drive Iraq
from Kuwait and, more broadly, safeguard the world's largest oil reserves.

Although most oil experts outside Somalia laugh at the suggestion that the
nation ever could rank among the world's major oil producers--and most
maintain that the international aid mission is intended simply to feed
Somalia's starving masses--no one doubts that there is oil in Somalia.  The
only question: How much?

"It's tere.  There's no doubt there's oil there," said Thomas E. O'Connor,
the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank who headed an in-depth,
three-year study of oil prospects in he Gulf of Aden off Somalia's
northern coast.

O'Connor, a professional geologist, based his conclusions on the findings
of some of the world's top petroleum geologists.  In a 1991 World Bank-coordinat
   ed
study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum
potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan
at the top of the list of prospective oil producers.

Beginning in 1986, COnoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Philips and, briefly,
SHell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia
from Siad Barre's government.  SOmalia was soon carved up into
concessional blocks, with Conoco, Amoco, and Chevron winning the right to
explore and exploit the most promising ones.

End of article...........................................................

I wonder how many papers have carried this story?

Marty
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