IT is hard enough to have promising oil exploration in strife-torn and chaotic Somalia, but it doesn't help when it is situated in a region named Puntland.
It is no surprise then that Peter Landau, a director at Perth-based Range Resources, likes to pronounce it "Poontland".
And it is a punt that Range is keen to make given some theories that the rich oil and gas resources just across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen also extend into the horn of Africa where Puntland lies.
Range, and its Swedish-backed Canadian-based partners Africa Oil, are closing in on drilling in January their first well in the prospective Nogal Basin of Puntland. That would mark the restart of exploration drilling since oil majors such as Amoco, Chevron and Conoco fled the country in 1991 as civil war broke out.
But in the lead-up to drilling finally starting, Range is having to weather fresh uncertainty over the surety of its concessions in Somalia. The relatively stable semi-autonomous province of Puntland is in a political dispute with the Ethiopian-backed titular Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu that is battling an Islamist insurgency.
At the centre of the dispute is TFG Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's move to bring in a national oil law that risks overturning Puntland's own agreements with Range.
The stand-off has weighed on Range shares, which have virtually halved since late July from about $1 to 52c. That values the explorer at about $92 million.
In Range's favour, the Puntland Government is refusing to countenance the proposed oil law, and could threaten to secede. Unlike the neighbouring Somaliland province to the west that has declared its independence from the TFG, Puntland has so far maintained that it wants to eventually remain part of a newly constituted Somalia and with it its potential oil wealth. Nevertheless, some big interests are at stake. Mr Gedi has enlisted Kuwait Energy Co to help draw up the new law and is planning to establish a national oil and gas company in which KEC and Indonesia's PT Medco Energy Internasional would share a 49per cent interest.
It is unclear how the new law would affect Chinese state oil giant CNOOC's agreement in July to explore in the Mudug region of Puntland.
Range's partners Africa Oil meanwhile are negotiating to bring in third partner, RAK Gas of the United Arab Emirates.
According to Mr Landau, the more companies that become involved in Somalia, the more likely that agreements and rights will be respected.
"We want as many people as possible because the more vested interests in there the better," he told The Australian.
Nor is Range letting the dispute get in the way of its plan to take out a listing on London's Alternative Investment Market, which it said on Monday was on track for the end of October.
Range has a 20 per cent stake the Nogal exploration effort, with Africa Oil farming in for 80 per cent by spending $US45 million ($52.1 million) to drill four wells. Mr Landau said any stake granted to RAK would come from Africa Oil's holding.
Somalia has no proven oil reserves but is rated as highly prospective. Range believes the Nogal Basin has the potential to host 2.2 billion to 10 billion barrels of oil.
Brokers Intersuisse last week rated Range a speculative buy.