Turkey's Expanding Grip on Somalia: Oil, Fisheries and Military Power

Turkey isn't just getting an unusually favorable oil contract in Somalia. It is building an integrated economic and security position — spanning hydrocarbons, fisheries and maritime enforcement, on top of what is already its largest military base outside Turkey itself — that will outlast any single agreement. The clearest evidence starts with the numbers: under Article 4.7 of the 2024 agreement, Turkey's state operator, TPAO, can retain up to 90% of crude oil and natural gas produced each year to recover its own costs before Somalia's share is calculated. Somalia's own model production-sharing agreement, published by its Petroleum Authority as the template for foreign contractors, fixes that same ceiling at 70%. The 90% figure is not a profit split — it is the share of each year's production TPAO can claim first to recover its costs, before royalty or profit-sharing applies to what remains. Somalia's own royalty, separately, is capped, in the agreement's own words, at "up to five percent... if any" — one component of the fiscal package, not Somalia's total take, since an undisclosed profit-oil split still applies to whatever remains after cost recovery. TPAO also owes no signature, development, production, surface or administrative fees. A contractor with first claim on 90% of output, instead of the 70% Somalia's own standard allows, is left with a far smaller pool to share once costs are recovered.

The deal has drawn sharp criticism from an analyst with no domestic political stake in Somalia's outcome. The Royal United Services Institute, a UK defence and security think tank, called the arrangement "lopsided" in a May 2026 analysis, noting it was "rushed through Somalia's parliament without scrutiny" and situating it inside a wider contest for influence over the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The oil deal did not arrive in isolation. In February 2024, Turkey and Somalia separately signed a ten-year maritime-security agreement under which Turkish forces train and equip the Somali navy and take on Somalia's fight against illegal fishing — while Turkey reportedly receives 30% of revenue generated from Somalia's exclusive economic zone, according to the Atlantic Council. That agreement is distinct from the oil contract, and its 30% figure applies to a different revenue base than the cost-recovery ceiling; the two figures measure different things and should not be added together. What they show together is accumulation, not addition: within roughly two years, Turkey secured a leading commercial position in Somalia's prospective oil sector, a revenue share in its maritime economy, and the naval and military presence to protect both.

The fisheries piece fits the same pattern, even if it is smaller in scale. SOMTURK, a joint Turkish-Somali fishing company established in December 2025 and run by a Turkish military-linked entity, formalized an exclusive-economic-zone fishing concession on March 29, 2026 — giving Ankara a foothold in Somalia's maritime economy alongside, not instead of, the oil and security agreements. The full extent of SOMTURK's authority over permitting, vessel registration and monitoring has not been independently verified for this report.

That last piece is what separates this from an ordinary resource deal. Turkish frigates — TCG Göksu, Gelibolu and Bartın, with support vessels Korkut, Altan and Sancar — are still escorting the drillship Çağrı Bey as it works Somalia's Curad-1 well, under a broader military mandate Turkey's parliament just extended two more years, through July 2028. Ankara has run TURKSOM, its largest overseas base, in Mogadishu since 2017, and its defence ministry has confirmed deploying additional troops specifically to protect the drilling operation. It is rare for an external power active in Africa to be simultaneously a fragile state's chief security guarantor, its largest foreign military presence, its offshore drilling partner, and a direct beneficiary of the resulting petroleum agreement. It is that combination — energy, security and diplomacy reinforcing each other in the same relationship — that analysts point to when describing how a middle power builds leverage inside a fragile state, more than the oil terms alone.

The Somali state that signed both deals was not well positioned to negotiate as an equal, and its position has only grown weaker since. Constitutional amendments in March 2024 extended presidential and parliamentary terms in the same month Puntland withdrew its recognition of the federal government in protest — leaving the government that struck both the oil and maritime deals facing an immediate legitimacy challenge from one of its own federal member states. That fragility has deepened, not eased, in the years since: further amendments in March 2026 postponed that year's elections to 2027, a move former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed called "illegal constitutional changes," and triggered deadly clashes in Mogadishu in June 2026. Puntland separately objected to the oil deal itself after a map accompanying the announcement of Turkish exploration activity depicted contested Mudug-region boundaries. The oil agreement itself was reportedly signed by only two government ministries, without full disclosure to parliament — the same gap RUSI's analysis points to. None of these facts individually proves Somalia was exploited. Together — disputed constitutional legitimacy at signing, a federal member state in open opposition, unresolved questions over parliamentary oversight of the deal, and a government that has grown more dependent, not less, on the very foreign power it contracted with for its own security — they describe a state with limited room to hold out for terms closer to its own published standard.

Somali officials themselves have made a version of this case. In remarks reported by Somali media, an adviser to Somalia's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change was quoted calling the deal "the worst [agreement] ever signed by a sovereign nation," saying "the foreign partner takes the oil, sets the costs, runs operations, settles disputes on its soil and even demands compensation if national laws change" — a quote this piece has not independently verified against a primary source. A former Puntland minister has separately alleged Turkey is angling for a 90% profit share outright — a stronger and less precise claim than the confirmed cost-recovery figure, and one this piece treats as his own characterization, not a contract term.

To the analysts who have examined it, the deal reads as a case study in how a fragmented state can lose the ability to hold a more powerful partner to its own published rules. Turkey moved into a divided Somali state and negotiated terms that give its state oil company an unusually strong position in Somalia's emerging petroleum sector and a foothold in its fisheries, while Ankara simultaneously deepened its military and maritime role — positioning itself, in effect, as Somalia's security guarantor, maritime enforcer, oil partner and fisheries stakeholder all at once. Somalia's own published oil standard suggests a more institutionally stable government would have had more room to resist those terms.