Approximately 95 % of the population in Somalia uses shallow groundwater for human and agriculture consumption. However, less than 45% have access to safe drinking water. On the other hand, Somalia has been the focus of different oil and gas exploration campaigns. To date, about 80 oil and gas wells have been drilled and more than 40.000 km of seismic lines have been acquired.

Shifting from oil to water is a relatively small step. Ruden Water makes the shift happen with the innovative Search Model solution.

Funded by the Norwegian ministry of Foreign Affairs, we are currently assessing the potential for deep groundwater in Somalia on a national scale.

The image above shows the shallow aquifers penetrated by shallow water wells (in red), in contrast to the potential large amounts of water in the deep aquifer that can only be seen with wells drilled by the oil industry (in blue).

The project is being developed by interpreting existing oil and gas industry data from Somalia, integrated with Remote Sensing and data from SWALIM (Somalia Water and Land Information Management). Thanks to the participation of Schlumberger, the project has access to Petrel and Techlog software for 3D modelling, seismic and petrophysics interpretation.