Abdirahman Hussein
Co-founder, Somaliland
East Africa Time
Based in Hargeisa. Runs sourcing, grading, quality control and shipping, and works directly with harvesters and graders.
About Orivex Exports
A new company with two bases: Hargeisa, Somaliland, which handles buying, sorting and shipping, and Canada, which handles the contract and the account. It is run by its two co-founders.
Why the company exists
Buyers abroad can see what Somaliland has. The Somali north is one of the places the world’s frankincense comes from,1 and the port of Berbera has had a new container terminal since 2021.2 Getting the material is another matter.
Supply can be spread across many small collectors, and resin can change hands more than once before it is exported.3 Grades may never have been written down. What a buyer hears about a lot can reach them second-hand, late, and from whoever is selling it. A buyer on another continent cannot check any of this.
On the other side, the people who harvest and grade the resin often have little direct access to buyers abroad.
Orivex Exports was set up to work in that gap. The buying, the sorting and the paperwork are handled from Hargeisa. The contract and the account are with someone buyers in North America and Europe can reach. Between the two runs one record: the lot file.
Who runs it
Two co-founders, one at each end. You deal with both of them by name.
Hamza Abdi
Co-founder, Canada
Mountain Time
Based in Canada. Runs buyer relationships, contracts and accounts, and is the first contact for buyers in North America and Europe.
How we buy
The rules we set for our own buying, and the paper trail behind them.
- Whose trees Self-declared
- We buy only from trees whose ownership is not in dispute. Frankincense groves in Sanaag are family holdings under customary law, and owners either tap them or rent them out.3
- How they were tapped Self-declared
- We buy from harvesters who keep to tapping limits and rest periods. Researchers found most trees carrying more cuts than the traditional limit at eight of ten Sanaag sites they surveyed in 2016 and 2017,3 so this is not a rule that keeps itself.
- Paying harvesters Self-declared
- We pay fairly and on time. What was paid is in the purchase record.
- The paper trail
- Written agreements, lot records and payment records, so that you can show your own customers where the resin came from. Ask us how the rules were applied to the lot you are offered.
What comes as standard, and what does not
Everything a buyer might assume, sorted into what comes with every order, what is arranged on request, what we cannot show you today, and what we do not do.
Standard
Comes with every order.
- A named person in Hargeisa for the goods, and one in Canada for the contract
- A graded sample and photographs of the lot on offer, before you order
- A written specification agreed before any order
- A lot number on every bag, the packing list and the invoice
- A purchase record for everything we buy: who, where, when and what we paid
- Certificate of origin and phytosanitary certificate with every shipment
- Small first orders, so you can test the material and us
- Delivery FOB Berbera
On request
Arranged for a lot when you ask for it.
- Delivery CIF to your port, or by air for small urgent lots
- Laboratory analysis of the lot by an outside laboratory
- Copies of our Somaliland business licence and export licence
- Cartons, inner liners and custom packing
- A safety data sheet, where your market requires one
- Essential oils, through partner distillers
Not available
Not something we can show you today.
- Third-party certification: organic, wild-collection or fair-tradeNone heldWe do not describe resin as certified.
- An independent audit of our buying rules
- Lot records that buyers open onlineLot documents are sent to you directly.
- Published laboratory results for our gum arabic
We do not do this
Outside what we do.
- Calling a resin or gum certified, organic or food grade without the document to show for it
- Health or therapeutic claims for any material
- Customs clearance in your countryUnder FOB and CIF, import clearance and duties are the buyer’s side.4
How to check us
We are new. Four ways to check us before you commit.
Ask for our licences
Orivex Exports holds a Somaliland business licence and an export licence. Copies are available to buyers on request.
Talk to both of us
One call with Hargeisa and one with Canada will tell you more than a website can.
Test a sample of a lot
In your own laboratory, or one you choose.
Place a small first order
Then compare the goods with the sample, and the papers with the goods.
Talk to the people who run it.
References
Published sources for the reference facts on this page, last read 7 October 2026. Statements about how Orivex Exports works are our own and are not drawn from these sources.
- 1Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (n.d.). Trade in Boswellia species. Frankincense Resource Portal. padme.rbge.org.uk
- 2DP World (2021). DP World and Somaliland open new terminal at Berbera port. dpworld.com
- 3DeCarlo A., Ali S., Ceroni M. (2020). Ecological and economic sustainability of non-timber forest products in post-conflict recovery: a case study of the frankincense (Boswellia spp.) resin harvesting in Somaliland (Somalia). Sustainability 12(9): 3578. mdpi.com
- 4International Chamber of Commerce (2020). Incoterms 2020. iccwbo.org