Teribus-

Please review the other posts above and you will discover that your statement "everybody and their dog has shunned the place like the plague" is incorrect. You will find that there was also more current oil and gas exploration on-going in the Ogaden, a Somali occupied territory in Ethiopia, where a Chinese exploration team and their guards were killed or captured last year by the regional liberation group.

The point is that there are likely large reserves of oil and gas on both sides of the border in Somalia and Ethiopia, and until some level of peace is restored no further exploration or exploitation can safely take place. Perhaps that is what you meant.

In the meantime piracy makes economic sense for some in northern Somalia (Puntland).

Charley Noble