News

March 25, 2008

Range Resources Controls Huge Swathes Of Ground In Northern Somalia, But The Men With 50 Calibre Machine Guns Are Another Matter

By Our Man in Somalia

Interesting geology, lousy politics. And the civil war is a bit of a worry. Welcome to Somalia, land of the warlord where the weapon of choice is a 50-calibre machine gun on the back of a Toyota pick-up. Undeterred by these minor obstructions, Minesite nevertheless sent its man “up country” in the finest tradition of Boot, the hero of Evelyn Waugh’s great novel about the media, Scoop. Like Boot, who was on the spot reporting for the Daily Beast, Minesite’s Man in Somalia was totally out of his depth. Not only did he lack his own Toyota with attachments - note to editor: must buy one for the company - but he found the security somewhat daunting, and struggled to imagine what would happen should someone actually discover something of great value, such as a uranium or zinc mine, not to mention oil, the preferred target for the only company with the balls to give it a go, Range Resources.

Dual listed in London and Australia, Range has secured exclusive rights to a swathe of northern Somalia called Puntland. For anyone without a Times Atlas, Puntland is the “horn of Africa”, the bit that sticks out into the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. It is, without a shadow of doubt, one of the world’s most godforsaken dustbowls. It has been marched over by the Egyptians, a few thousand years ago, then by the British and Italians in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has little industry,...