Australian company has signed an oil exploration deal with the government of the breakaway government of Puntland. This part of Somalia's northeast is not recognized by the new Somalia government, or anyone else, as a country. Puntland, and its neighbor, Somaliland, are likely reasons for yet another civil war if the new Somali government ever gets itself organized. Oil companies had been negotiating, in the late 1980s, with the last real Somali government, to explore for oil off the Somali coast. But Somalia has had no government since 1991, thus no one to sign an oil deal.
