Turkey moves into Somalia’s untapped oil, raises stakes in Horn of Africa

With preparations underway to start drilling for oil and gas in Somalia, Ankara stands poised to expand its strategic footprint in the Horn of Africa, raising the risk of intensifying rivalries among regional and Gulf powers, which each have stakes in the Horn.

Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar earlier this month announced that Turkey will begin exploratory drilling operations in three offshore areas under Somalia's jurisdiction as well as on land in 2026 to assess their financial feasibility. The move follows months of seismic surveys by the TPAO, the national energy company, and marks the most concrete step yet in Turkey’s bid to secure a foothold in Somalia’s untapped hydrocarbon sector.

“We completed our seismic operations this year, and 2026 will most likely be our drilling year in Somalia’s offshore zone,” Bayraktar told journalists at a Dec. 3 press conference. 

Officials and experts believe that even modest production could reshape Somalia’s fragile economy while anchoring Turkey more deeply in the political, security and commercial landscape of the Horn.

Somalia’s potential 

TPAO sent the seismic research vessel Oruc Reis into Somali waters in October 2024 to survey for oil and gas. The crew spent months prospecting across the three offshore blocks, roughly 5,000 square kilometers each, before returning to Turkey in June, according to Bayraktar.

The exploration efforts came after Ankara and Mogadishu signed two agreements in 2024. The first, a defense and economic cooperation framework, allows Turkey to help Somalia build a navy and secure its coastline, and the second grants TPAO exclusive rights to explore and develop the offshore blocks.

Turkey and Somalia signed a third agreement earlier this year on hydrocarbon exploration in three additional blocks onshore, the Energy Ministry announced in April, without specifying the designated location. 

Energy and geopolitical experts who spoke to Al-Monitor said that even modest amounts of commercially viable production would benefit the coffers of the beleaguered federal government in Mogadishu.

The World Bank estimates that Somalia’s gross national product stood at $12.1 billion in 2024, so oil and natural gas revenues could indeed change the war- and poverty-stricken country’s fortunes.

According to the International Trade Administration at the US Department of Commerce, Somalia is estimated to be sitting on 30 billion barrels of oil, the equivalent of more than 80 years of Turkish consumption at one million barrels per day. Depending on gravity and “lightness” (sulfur content), that would be worth about $1.7 trillion to $1.8 trillion at current market prices, although it is unlikely that all (or even most) of the oil will be recoverable or located within the six blocks — three offshore and three onshore — where TPAO will operate.

Turkey’s potential gains

The Turkish-Somali energy push also fits into Ankara’s broader strategy in Africa, where it has sought to expand commercial and defense ties while positioning itself as a security partner to Western powers operating on the continent. 

Somalia hosts Turkey’s largest overseas military base, TURKSOM, where, among other things, Turkish personnel train Somali forces fighting an Islamist insurgency that has dragged on for more than a decade. Ankara established the base in 2017.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud heads the federal government, which has been battling the al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabab. Turkey has provided more than $1 billion in aid to Somalia since 2011, according to official data.

“Turkey is building influence with its existing military presence in Somalia to protect that country’s coastline and territorial waters,” Kaan Devecioglu, coordinator of North and East African studies at ORSAM, an Ankara-based research center, told Al-Monitor. “For TPAO to undertake this project shows its ability to assume risk in an area where other international companies are reluctant to come.”

Widespread piracy off the coast of Somalia is among the top security risks when conducting exploratory and drilling activities in Somali waters, along with general instability in the country due to increasing clashes between militants and the Somali troops. Because of the risk of piracy, plus long-running Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the Turkish navy tasked two warships to protect Oruc Reis during its explorations last year.

Western military influence in parts of Africa has been on the decline, with several former colonies — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — expelling French troops and others scaling back long-standing security agreements with Paris. In the process, France over the past five years has handed back military bases and sharply reduced its footprint across the region.

Moscow has sought to fill some of the vacuum, maintaining a security presence through state-linked forces, such as its Africa Corps, in countries where Western troops have left, and expanding military and economic ties with Sahelian governments.

Amid this shifting landscape, Ankara has been positioning itself as an alternative partner for the African states, deepening military cooperation and defense sales while building diplomatic and commercial ties that could enhance its influence relative to both Western and Russian actors.

Many African states, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo, have struck deals with Ankara for military hardware, ranging from armored cars and Baykar and Anka drones to Turkish Aerospace Industries Hurkus, a manned basic trainer and close air support aircraft.

Managing the competition

Turkey’s push into Somalia comes with structural limits and regional sensitivities that could blunt its ambitions.

For starters, Ankara lacks the deep financing power of China and has to navigate a crowded Horn of Africa region, where Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates each view Somali developments through the lens of their own rivalries and security interests.

Turkey’s limited financing capacity ultimately restricts its reach in Africa. Turkish firms cannot undertake as many infrastructure projects as their Chinese counterparts, which work with Beijing-backed credits provided to African states. Unlike Chinese companies, which rely on large state-backed credit lines to secure major infrastructure projects, Turkish firms tend to pursue World Bank tenders or smaller initiatives funded through TIKA, Turkey’s aid agency.

Visibility in the Horn of Africa brings its own risks. Devecioglu said regional power Egypt will welcome Turkish involvement in Somalia to balance against Ethiopia, one of its rivals. Cairo and Addis Ababa have been locked in a yearslong struggle driven largely by disputes over Nile waters and regional influence.

Ethiopia, Devecioglu said, will probably be wary of Turkey's drilling operations off the coast of Somalia, although Addis Ababa will likely welcome improved security in its eastern neighbor at a time when it seeks access to the sea to improve trade.

Last December, Mogadishu and Addis Ababa signed a preliminary agreement in Ankara allowing Ethiopia access to the Red Sea via Somali territory, but it had not been implemented.

The United Arab Emirates — which enjoys better relations with the autonomous areas of Puntland and Jubaland and the breakaway region of Somaliland than it does with Mogadishu — may view Turkey’s expanding energy interests as a constraint on its own influence and investment options in the Horn of Africa. Devecioglu also said, however, that “Ankara’s diplomatic capacity makes this situation manageable.” 

A Turkish defense official speaking on condition of anonymity told Al-Monitor, “Ankara and Emirates have learned to compartmentalize these issues.”

He added, “Even after the massacre by Emirati-backed rebels and mercenaries in Sudan, officials in Ankara made overtures behind closed doors instead of having a public spat.”

The Sudanese civil war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, intensifying in recent months as the RSF has seized key territory. The UAE has called for ceasefires and provided aid, but it also faces accusations of backing the RSF. The Emirates denies the allegations.

Neither Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor other Turkish officials directly accused the UAE of involvement in the ongoing bloodshed in Sudan, a deliberate move to preserve a fragile but strategically useful relationship with a Gulf power whose money, markets and regional clout Ankara would rather keep onside than antagonize.

As Ankara weighs diplomatic sensitivities as well as the uncertainties of its new energy push, it also faces the possibility that the Somalia venture may not yield commercially viable hydrocarbons. 

“When the President [Erdogan] first went to Somalia in 2011, there was a massive famine going on,” the defense official said. “Finding or not finding oil or gas will be immaterial to Somalia’s geopolitical importance for us.”