Turkey is ready to look for oil off the coast of Somalia. The country's deep-sea exploration vessel Cagri Bey arrived off the coast of Mogadishu last week, ready to extract black gold amid ongoing global shortages due to the Iran war.

The drill is intended to reach a depth of 7,500 meters (4.5 miles) into the Indian Ocean seabed, making it one of the deepest offshore operations of its kind in the world.

The government-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation will focus on three offshore exploration blocks off the Somali coast, with each measuring approximately 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles). According to the Reuters new agency, it will take 10 months to reach the deep-sea reserves and begin with extraction.

Who stands to gain the most from this partnership?

Can oil exploration take Somalia from rags to riches?

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud believes the deal could be a game changer. "Our natural resources are worth billions — if not trillions — of dollars, and they must not be mismanaged," he said at the inauguration in early April.

Had it not been for conflict and strife in the region, "Somalia's oil could have reached international markets much earlier." The profits from the resources, Mohamud said, "will benefit all Somalis, wherever they live in the country."

Dahir Shire Mohamed, Somalia's minister of petroleum and mineral resources, marked the arrival of the Cagri Bey exploration vessel as a "historic day," which showed "a new beginning in oil exploration and making use of the natural resources."

Lawmaker Asha Koos Mohamud Omar said the project would transform "poverty into prosperity" across Somalia. 

"Today, we begin to benefit from the natural resources that have lain beneath our soil for millions of years," she said. 

The same kind of enthusiasm is palpable on the streets of Mogadishu, where residents told DW that they had high hopes for the future. Many simply give a thumbs-up whenever Turkey is mentioned these days.

"I believe that if the drilling process is successful, many things will change. In particular, energy prices could fall, our reliance on imported fuel may decrease, and we could see real improvements in infrastructure development," said taxi driver Zakaria Ahmed Aden.

However, Somalia's overall sense of excitement still doesn't answer the question of what the other partner in this equation — Turkey — stands to gain from the arrangement.

How Turkey charmed its way to Mogadishu

Turkey first gained a foothold into the Horn of Africa a decade-and-a-half ago, according to DW correspondent Mohamed Kahiye in Mogadishu.

"Turkey's relations with Somalia date back to 2011, when Turkey launched a large-scale humanitarian response, providing much-needed assistance to affected communities at the height of a severe drought," he explained.

Somalia has since emerged as Turkey's biggest regional partner in Africa. In 2024, the two nations signed a 10-year agreement on defense and economic cooperation, in which NATO member Turkey agreed to protect Somalia's coastline, which had been plagued by some two decades of piracy.

This led to Turkey establishing its biggest overseas military base in Somalia, training Somali soldiers to fight piracy and Islamist groups such as al-Shabab and insurgents associated with the breakaway region of Somaliland.

The focus is now on access to the massive oil fields off the East African coast. Geological and seismic surveys show that the region sits on at least 30 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves ready to be tapped.

"Many Somalis view Turkey's involvement in the country as largely positive," said Kahiye. "However, there are also differing views, particularly concerning the management and implications of newly discovered offshore resources."

Turkey's growing thirst — and need — for oil

Volkan Ipek, a political scientist at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, told DW that Turkey's initiative in Somalia highlights the government's growing need "to find additional energy resources."

"Planned deals in the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and the Black Sea further reflect this ambition," he said.

In the view of Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, the launch of the oil exploration initiative in Somalia marked "a new era in Turkish petroleum exploration."

A brief overview of Turkey's own position in the energy sector reveals why the stakes are so high for Turkey. With a population of 86 million, Turkey has a massive hunger for oil. About three-quarters of the country's energy supplies rely on foreign imports during a time when it's becoming difficult — and costly — for Ankara to keep buying from Russia and Iran, countries with different geopolitical interests.

With neighboring Syria devastated by more than a decade of war, Iran now involved in a regional conflict and Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, Turkey is actively looking for alternatives. A major cost of living crisis has also been keeping its population on edge in recent years.

Is Turkey pulling the wool over Somalia's eyes?

According to Afyare Abdi Elmi, a research professor at City University of Mogadishu, the relationship between the two countries is still a benevolent one. Turkey's engagement in the region is a "win-win collaboration" on both sides, he told Turkey's state-run broadcaster TRT.

"Somalia offers as a strategic place a gateway to most of East Africa … while Turkey is also interested economically and trade-wise in that part of the world," he said.

However, analyst Arman Sidhu, in an article published by Canada's Geopolitical Monitor in mid-March, said Turkey has deliberately and deeply entrenched itself on every level of its cooperation with Somalia — so much so that terms like "cooperation" and "partnership" do not reflect the nature of the arrangement.

"Turkey has assembled operational control over nearly every strategic economic asset in Somalia," Sidhu wrote, stressing that the Turkish government "has positioned itself upstream of Somalia's revenue flows" unlike other players in Africa like China and Russia, who take a more hands-off approach in their investment projects.

According to Sidhu, Turkey has "embedded itself so deeply that [its] extraction would risk institutional collapse" in Somalia as much of the country now depends on Turkey — from aid to development to military support, expanding now to the terms of the oil extraction enterprise.

The security entourage of the Cagri Bey alone shows how important the integrity and the viability of the oil project is for Ankara. The Turkish naval task force deployed to secure the vessel is comprised of three warships — the TCG Sancaktar, TCG Gokova, and TCG Bafra — and various fighter jets.

Mohamed Kahiye in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

Edited by: Benita van Eyssen