News

October 08, 2008

Range Resources Has Got The Prospectivity To Support An Exciting Future, Providing It Can Keep The Pirates And Warlords In Somalia At Bay

By Alastair Ford

What do you do if you’ve hijacked a ship containing 33 state-of-the-art Russian T-72 tanks? No, this is not a note-to-self from thriller-writer Jack Higgins, this is the question that faced a gang of Somali pirates who struck it lucky when they held up a Ukrainian cargo ship off the coast of Somalia’s Puntland region on Friday 26th September. The answer, surprisingly, given that the ship was surrounded by US navy destroyers, was to shoot at each other. That, however, has been denied by a “spokesman” for the pirates - it seems that even pirates have PRs, and you can see how a specialist in “crisis management” might relish the job.

This is what we hear about Somalia. Pirates stalk the seas. Warlords stalk the cities. Lawlessness abounds. A choice place to invest in a resources company, then. But, as they say, you have to go where God put the resources. In spite of what the Islamic Courts in the south may say, God hasn’t shown too much favour to Somalia over the past few decades, so perhaps it’s time He gave the country a break. It might just come in the form of the exploration being conducted by Range Resources in the...