Genel’s Somaliland drilling may slip to 2024

The UK-headquartered independent’s plans are now for the back end of next year or early the year after

Exploration of the SL10B13 licence in the Somaliland region of Somalia targeted for 2023 is at risk of slipping into the following year, the CEO of London-listed operator Genel Energy warns. “This is frontier exploration in a fairly remote location, and there are a lot of activities to get through before we actually start drilling,” says Paul Weir. “Drilling is scheduled for the end of 2023 or early in 2024.” But any delay is not dimming Genel’s excitement about the block’s potential. “This is a tremendous opportunity, a highly prospective block with multiple prospects and over 5bn bl of prospective resource identified already. “We have agreed on a first well location, which is targeting sta