News

Shell reckons an energy crisis looms in SA(SABC)

Oil company Shell says introducing gas as a large contributor to the energy supply in the country could be a game changer.  Shell representatives were speaking at the Africa Energy Indaba taking place in Sandton, north of Johannesburg.

The oil company has applied for exploration rights to look for shale gas in the Karoo, but environmental groups are opposing it. Shell’s Jan Willem Eggink says having a more stable energy supply, which is not as dirty as coal, could benefit the economy.

He says, “Some of the gas can immediately be converted into electricity, it is required here as you have the energy crisis looming in South Africa.”

Eggink says other gasses could go to new industries, something that is seen in the United States, noting that there is indication that there is a lot of gas available in the country.

It’s a little disconcerting that there is enthusiasm for gas to the extent that it’s competing for limited capital with renewables

He says security of supply is not an issue anymore, with the price being low. Having it in SA would result in creation of heaps of jobs, which is exactly what is needed.

Meanwhile, the WWF’s Programme Manager for Climate Change, Richard Worthington, says gas shouldn’t be looked at as a major contributor to the country’s energy sector, but only as a transitional energy source while infrastructure is being built for renewable energy sources.

Worthington says it’s a little disconcerting that there is enthusiasm for gas to the extent that it’s competing for limited capital with renewables. “We think that the best return on investment for SA at this time is in renewable energy and energy efficiency and that should be given top priority.” He also says renewables should be prioritised because of the social benefits that can be delivered.

Friday, February 24, 2012 by John Phillips

Gus Simpson, managing director, told Proactive Investors today that drilling results from Lance continue to be ‘beyond our expectations’, while adding production remains on target for early 2013. A resource upgrade is also in the wings, due late March 2012.

Peninsula Energy (ASX: PEN) is on the road to production at the Lance Projects in Wyoming, U.S., and providing a boost to the economics of the project is a continued string of high grade results.

The latest highlights from Kendrick include:

– 4 metres at 2,340ppm eU3O8, including 2.6 metres at 3,420ppm eU3O8;
– 3.3 metres at 1,100ppm eU3O8, including 1 metre at 2,760 ppm eU3O8; and
– 2.7 metres at 920ppm eU3O8, including 0.8 metres at 2,300 ppm eU3O8.

These results follow on from those delivered to the market earlier in the month, including:

– 9.4 metres at 485ppm eU3O8, including 1.7 metres at 1,620 ppm eU3O8;
– 1.2 metres at 1,965ppm eU3O8, including 0.8 metres at 2,990 ppm eU3O8; and
– 2.3 metres at 730ppm eU3O8, including 0.9 metres at 1,140 ppm eU3O8.

The current drilling program is targeted at increasing the resource, and also the confidence categories to Indicated from Inferred, with an updated resource forecast for delivery in around a month’s time. Two rigs are active at the moment.

Gus Simpson, managing director, told Proactive Investors today that drilling results from Lance continue to be ‘beyond our expectations’, while adding production remains on target for early 2013.

The proposed Kendrick production unit is located to the west of the Ross production unit. Drilling in this area has targeted the K4 and K5 roll fronts with significant mineralisation intersected in the Fox Hills sandstones. (See picture).

The drilling along the Kendrick roll front system is consistently producing thick high grade intercepts which has resulted in its prioritisation due to its resource expansion potential and its proximity to the proposed site of the Lance Central Processing Plant.

K4 and K5 adjacent to K3

The K4 and K5 roll fronts are located to the east of and adjacent to the K3 roll front trend which is down-gradient from the main roll front within the permit area. The expectation is that much of the inferred material within these areas will be re-classified as indicated.

The K3, K4 and K5 roll fronts are currently open-ended and the most recent drilling has targeted the northern extensions of these roll front trends as well as defining the nose position.

Drilling will continue to test both the northern and southern extensions of these trends. Recent drilling on the K4 and K5 roll fronts has confirmed along-strike continuity of over 500 metres together with horizontal widths of up to 60 metres.

Peninsula said that it has also become apparent that the K4 and K5 trends merge towards the north producing wide areas of continuous mineralisation.

They also appear to be strike-parallel to the K3 roll front which is continuous for around 3 kilometres. These trends and the consistent high grade, thick intersections being returned have significant implications for the resource potential of the Kendrick area.

 

Tomorrow I am off to that little Karoo town of Prince Albert. Me and my faithful bicycle, Bert. Prince Albert stands at the base of the Swartberg – that sawtooth range separating SA’s arid north from the wet south. I am going there for a five-day practice run before our 10th and last Tour de Farce, scheduled for May.

This week’s dummy run is a set-piece tour called the Gourmet Karoo Cycle Tour.

My wife maintains I am going just for the food. This is a cruel simplification of my honourable motives and I will spare the reader the rest of this domestic exchange.

There’s a lot more to it than eating. For instance, there’s wine tasting.

True, there’s some “culinary adventures” including lunch under the trees in Die Hel, tea and crumpets in Klaarstroom, Karoo dinners, as well as snacks en route served from a luxury coach that, towing a bike trailer, will take us from Joburg and back.

It will then follow us every day picking up the feeble.

I’d be embarrassed at having to be picked up but, with luck, my chain will break – irreparably – and I can then ride in the bus with the sandwiches.

A dozen of us will be cycling, some with their wives.

The itinerary says we cycle up the Swartberg Pass.

Now this is a very serious pass with hairpin bends and many precipices. Liz Szabo (Escape Cycle Tours) who designed our tour has cycled up its 26km in one go.

I have done that, too – without resting and in searing February heat. But, like Liz, I am not one to brag about it. Anyway it was in a car, which some nitpickers will say doesn’t really count.

I recall reaching the summit and looking north to the parched Great Karoo and then south – south into the deep, lush, green 25km-wide valley of the Little Karoo.

Will I be cycling up the pass this time? Please feel free to ask this and any other dumb questions by writing on a postcard and posting it anywhere you like.

As I say, this is a dummy run for Tour de Farce X when, once again, we will be cycling in France. It’s the fourth time us Farciers have chosen France.

(“It’s the French dinners,” says my wife. But it’s not of course. It’s also the lunches and the wine and the camaraderie and the exercise and the French cheese and croissants.)

This time our six-man peloton will be winding through Alsace in north-east France (using a barge as a hotel) and then we’ll be trying out a 200km stage of July’s le Tour de France.

Le Tour athletes do it in about six hours. We plan to do it in four – four days, that is.

Last week I ran into Tony Davies, the man who, inspired by our Tour de Farce adventures, rallied five of his retired friends to do what we did in 2003 – two weeks of cycling across the south of France.

Except Tony’s route took them, more by error than anything else, deep into the mountainous Cevennes with its tortuous climbs.

“Well, it looked perfectly flat in the atlas,” he said.

It turned out to be a severe test of just about everything – lifelong friendships, bikes, bodies…

They are now planning to emulate our very first Tour de Farce when we cycled 1 000km down the Danube. Except they are starting from the Danube’s source in the Black Forest and cycling 2 850km to the Black Sea in probably two sections over two years.

It proves what I have long maintained: cycling drives you mad.

 

Sanlam

Get Sanlam’s view on the Budget Speech

These were the main findings of an opinion poll conducted by Ipsos for Shell during August and September 2011. Ipsos polled more than 2,000 South Africans on exploration for natural gas in the Karoo Basin. Face-to-face interviews allowed the interviewers to describe, inform and question respondents on shale gas, the process of hydraulic fracturing, their views on Shell and their hopes for South Africa.

Mari Harris, Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos, said, “Respondents clearly desire more information; they want to know if there is gas, how it will benefit them and what the impact will be.”

Awareness

The vast majority of South Africans (86%) were unaware of the possible exploration for natural gas in the Karoo and only 12% indicated that they had heard the term “hydraulic fracturing”¹ before. As would be expected, awareness by word of mouth is higher among Karoo residents than among those living in other parts of the country, an indication of the greater relevance of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing for people living in this area.

South Africans do want to know if there is gas in the Karoo

However, in spite of the very low awareness, when asked, more than seven in every ten adult South Africans (73%) were in favour of determining the presence of natural gas in the Karoo. If natural gas was proven to be present in the Karoo the same proportion (73%) would be in favour of gas extraction. However the proportion of those who are strongly in favour increases (from 39% to 45%), while the proportion of those in opposition decreases to 21%, with a larger group now uncertain as to how they feel about the issue (6%).

After the ideas of supporters of hydraulic fracturing were presented, about seven in every ten (69%) adult South Africans indicated that they were still in favour of gas exploration. After hearing views expressed by critics of the hydraulic fracturing process, the support for gas exploration reduced marginally to about two-thirds (66%).

South Africans care most about job creation

The study highlighted that job security and job creation remain very important issues in South Africa and more than half (54%) indicated that they would like more information on how gas exploration will benefit economic development and create jobs. Regarding infrastructure development, four out of every ten (39%) want information about how it will benefit the supply of and access to electricity. More information about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing was important to 41% and a third (35%) would like to know how clean burning natural gas will be.

¹The process of forcing a mixture of 99% water and sand, with 1% chemicals into shale formations deep underground to release natural gas.

[Johannesburg, 22 February 2012] –

Although most adult South Africans were unaware of the possible exploration for natural gas in the Karoo, when introduced to the concept, the majority said that they are in favour of determining the presence of natural gas in the Karoo. Respondents wanted the pressing issues of job creation, economic development and environmental concerns to be addressed in the process. The prospect of natural gas development creating a reliable domestic energy source that would give more South Africans access to electricity was also of paramount importance.

These were the main findings of an opinion poll conducted by Ipsos for Shell during August and September 2011. Ipsos polled more than 2,000 South Africans on exploration for natural gas in the Karoo Basin.  Face-to-face interviews allowed the interviewers to describe, inform and question respondents on shale gas, the process of hydraulic fracturing, their views on Shell and their hopes for South Africa.

Mari Harris, Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos, said, “Respondents clearly desire more information; they want to know if there is gas, how it will benefit them and what the impact will be.”

Awareness

The vast majority of South Africans (86%) were unaware of the possible exploration for natural gas in the Karoo and only 12% indicated that they had heard the term “hydraulic fracturing”1 before.  As would be expected, awareness by word of mouth is higher among Karoo residents than among those living in other parts of the country, an indication of the greater relevance of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing for people living in this area.

South Africans do want to know if there is gas in the Karoo

However, in spite of the very low awareness, when asked, more than seven in every ten adult South Africans (73%) were in favour of determining the presence of natural gas in the Karoo.  If natural gas was proven to be present in the Karoo the same proportion (73%) would be in favour of gas extraction.  However the proportion of those who are strongly in favour increases (from 39% to 45%), while the proportion of those in opposition decreases to 21%, with a larger group now uncertain as to how they feel about the issue (6%).

After the ideas of supporters of hydraulic fracturing were presented, about seven in every ten (69%) adult South Africans indicated that they were still in favour of gas exploration. After hearing views expressed by critics of the hydraulic fracturing process, the support for gas exploration reduced marginally to about two-thirds (66%).

South Africans care most about job creation

The study highlighted that job security and job creation remain very important issues in South Africa and more than half (54%) indicated that they would like more information on how gas exploration will benefit economic development and create jobs. Regarding infrastructure development, four out of every ten (39%) want information about how it will benefit the supply of and access to electricity. More information about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing was important to 41% and a third (35%) would like to know how clean burning natural gas will be.

Notes to Editors

Research Design and Technical Detail
This research project had been commissioned by Shell in order to measure the South Africans’ awareness of potential gas exploration in the Karoo and to gauge the opinion of the South African public regarding this issue.

2 006 face-to-face interviews were conducted in the homes of a representative sample of adult South Africans (18+ years old) using CAPI (Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing) methodology.

The fieldwork period was from 4 August to 2 September 2011.

To promote ease of understanding and to ensure the best possible quality of results, interviews were conducted in the respondents’ language of choice.

The sample included respondents from all population groups, provinces and types of settlements, in the whole spectrum from metropolitan areas to rural areas.

A disproportionately high number of interviews were conducted in the Karoo areas to ensure that the opinions of those members of the public who would be most impacted by any further development in the Karoo were adequately represented.

At the analysis stage all findings were weighted to represent the total adult population of South Africa in its correct proportions.

The sample error is 2, 2%.

For further in information please contact:

Mari Harris, Director Public Affairs, Ipsos South Africa
Telephone: 011 686 8458
Mobile: 082 5575058
Email: mari.harris@ipsos.com
http://www.ipsos.com

Ipsos: The Home of Researchers

Ipsos is an innovative, entrepreneurial, client-focused organisation, providing research services to clients on a global basis. We set ourselves high standards and aim to work collaboratively in partnership with our teams in order to service our clients most effectively.

Ipsos recently acquired Synovate globally.

Ipsos is proud to be the only global market research company that is still controlled and operated by market researchers. We aim to remain the natural home for intellectually curious and passionate researchers.

Our goal is simple: to be our clients’ preferred research partners in our areas of specialisation, based on BQC (Better, Quicker, Cheaper) methodologies and processes. We want our clients to be proud and pleased to work with us – and we want each one of us to be proud and pleased to offer our clients high quality standards, efficiency and intelligence.

1 The process of forcing a mixture of  99% water and sand, with 1% chemicals  into shale formations deep underground to release natural gas.

2012-02-22 13:00

The Karoo is ideal for stargazing, astronomer Kechil Kirkham has said. (Duncan Alfreds, News24)

Multimedia   ·   User Galleries   ·   News in Pictures
Send us your pictures  Â·  Send us your stories

Duncan Alfreds

Laingsburg – The Karoo provides the ideal opportunity to observe the night sky for both professionals and amateurs, an astronomer has said.

It’s very dark; many places in the Karoo are dark and that’s very good and that’s rare,” astronomer Kechil Kirkham from Over the Moon Tours told News24.

The Anysberg Nature Reserve recently began a stargazing programme for visitors and Kirkham said that the open plain of the Karoo provided an easy way to observe the stars.

“Mountains are bad for stargazing for two reasons: One is that they generate clouds and potentially rain as well. They also will restrict your view and Anysberg has this beautiful wide open plain. So you can plonk your telescope or lie down on the ground and see all around.”

The 62 500ha reserve has accommodation for about 20 people in cottages although there is also a campsite and plans to build one more cottage.

Astronomy tourism

CapeNature, which owns the reserve, wants to ensure that the area remains unspoilt and as a result, there is very little development on the site.

“There is no light pollution here: It’s one of the darkest spots on Earth. It’s as dark as Sutherland where the Southern African Large Telescope [Salt] and the other telescopes are for the South African Astronomical Observatory,” said Kirkham.

In urban areas, light pollution and atmospheric moisture make stargazing difficult, but rural areas have an advantage in that their lack of development makes it easy to see stars more clearly than urban areas.

“There’s very little in the way of air pollution and perturbations in the atmosphere that you would get around centres of population or places where there’re large forests,” said Kirkham.

The reserve which also features several species of animals such as gemsbok, red hartebeest, the endangered Cape mountain zebra may benefit from an increasing interest in astronomy.

SA is currently bidding to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which aims to build over 3 000 linked radio telescopes in the Northern Cape province.

“I believe that in the Western Cape, astronomy tourism is just going to increase. Even if South Africa doesn’t win the Square Kilometre Array bid, there’s going to be MeerKAT [Karoo Array Telescope].

“The Southern African Large Telescope is now fully operational; all kinds of interesting results are going to be generated from that place which will attract more people to wonder about astronomy – both local tourists and international tourists,” Kirkham said.

Accessing the reserve is not easy as there are no tarred roads and the CapeNature website advises that high clearance vehicles are used, but small groups of visitors may find the experience quite rewarding.

“Most tourists will not have seen a very dark place like Anysberg so I believe that this place can attract all kinds of visitors, but especially those who are interested in stargazing, and those who haven’t seen the Southern Hemisphere night sky, because that’s different here,” Kirkham added.

– Follow Duncan on Twitter
 

Sanlam

Get Sanlam’s view on the Budget Speech

2012-02-20 10:29

Radio telescope dishes stand on the site of the MeerKAT near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. (Duncan Alfreds, News24)

Multimedia   ·   User Galleries   ·   News in Pictures
Send us your pictures  Â·  Send us your stories

Duncan Alfreds

Cape Town – The construction of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will play an important role in development, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has said.

“Our interest is to see the biggest radio telescope ever being built and we would love to see it being built and wherever it is built, we would love to see the impact this telescope has on development,” Kevin Govender, director for the Office of Astronomy for Development at the IAU told News24.

He said that the project was vital, even in challenging economic times.

“I remain quite optimistic about the project going ahead even in spite of all the financial challenges happening in the world today. Investment into a project like this actually stimulates general growth and development.

“Investing in large-scale science projects has an impact of building human capacity; it has the impact of stimulating industries to be part of this big project.

“I think of all things to invest in, investing in science and technology is a very good idea during hard economic times,” Govender said.

Targeted outcome

The SKA aims to build over 3 000 linked radio telescopes and both Australia and South Africa have submitted bids for the project, expected to cost about €1.5bn and is scheduled for completion by 2024.

Govender insisted that research that didn’t have a targeted outcome was vital for development.

“My office was set up because of the fundamental belief that investing the in the exploration of the universe investing in something of this nature, so called blue sky research, is actually a good thing for development.

“It’s part of human nature and it always has been, that we explore our environment; that we continue to challenge our minds and be curious about the world around us. It is that curiosity that has led us to where we are today.

“If there wasn’t such a thing as blue sky research, if there wasn’t that curiosity, we would not have electricity that we have, the cellphone technology; the satellite technology.”

If SA doesn’t win the SKA, the government has committed itself to building the MeerKAT (Karoo Array Telescope) which will consist of 64 linked radio telescopes in the Karoo.

“We will build MeerKAT, but we have an exciting initiative that we’re currently trying to promote on the continent. That of building a VLBI [Very Long Baseline Interferometer] of radio satellites connected across the African continent and linking in to the VLBI network in Europe as well as the Americas,” said Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor.

Human challenges

Initially, MeerKAT was intended as a test-bed for the SKA, but it has become a relevant instrument in its own right and is scheduled for completion by 2016.

Govender rejected concerns that engineers will be poached to work in whichever country wins the SKA bid.

“It’s a global environment we’re working in at the moment and something like SKA is a projects that’s so big, we need to generate engineers and scientists all over the world and the investment that South Africa has made in terms of building MeerKAT, the investments that Australia has made in the Askap [Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder] – this is all developing each region’s skills capacity.

“You might have engineers moving around, but in the global context we have brought up more skills that contribute to global development.”

The IAU says that development of astronomy should not be seen in opposition to social spending, but rather that it creates an economic boost to improve the lives of ordinary people.

“It shouldn’t be invest in the telescope at the sacrifice of working on poverty alleviation programmes. If you look at the global slices given to science and technology versus how much is invested in development and direct poverty alleviation programmes, you’ll find that science and technology has a very thin slice of that global budget.

“As we grow human knowledge, we are better able to address human challenges,” Govender said.

– Follow Duncan on Twitter
 

INLSA

Jonathan Deal

JOHN YELD

Environment Science Writer

THREE applications to explore for shale gas in the Karoo using fracking are “fatally flawed”, says the Treasure the Karoo Action Group.

This is because the public participation process that each of the companies followed was inadequate, the anti-fracking group’s chairman, Jonathan Deal, told Cape Town Press Club yesterday.

Responding to a question about whether opposition to fracking was coming only from wealthy white landowners and that other Karoo residents were not having their say, Deal said it was an issue that “concerns me greatly” and one that was vigorously debated by the action group’s leadership.

“Our government has failed in its responsibility to ensure that the citizens are told about fracking truthfully and accurately… There are hundreds of thousands of people who know nothing about this,” he said.

But it was not the action group’s responsibility to inform people. “A matter of this magnitude and scale is the duty of government – it’s their critical duty to ensure that everyone is informed.”

Deal said fracking had been banned or was under a partial moratorium in five countries – France, Bulgaria, SA, Switzerland and the Netherlands – as well as states in Germany and Australia and 108 places around the world.

There had to be a reason for this, despite the “so-called” benefits of abundant energy, abundant jobs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions that shale gas offered, he argued.

Deal said a partnership had been finalised between the action group and US anti-fracking lobby group Water Defence, led by movie star and activist Mark Ruffalo.

He said Ruffalo would join the action group board and he would join the board of Water Defence.

“The anti-fracking movement is going global, formally” he said.

A statement issued later by the action group quoted Ruffalo as saying that fracking was “a global threat (that) requires a global response”.

Deal said the move would “considerably enhance” his group’s ability to oppose fracking in SA.

john.yeld@inl.co.za

Sanlam

Get Sanlam’s view on the Budget Speech

Rustenburg – Thousands of protesting miners burnt tyres and torched a police office near Impala Platinum’s Rustenburg mine on Thursday, as a month-long strike at the world’s second-largest producer of the precious metal turned violent.

Police said a miner died of injuries after being beaten during an overnight demonstration. Up to 5 000 miners blocked the road leading to the mine and hurled stones at police, said provincial police spokesperson Adele Myburg.

“This morning they regrouped, started intimidating people who wanted to go the mine, there were people assaulted, vehicles were stoned,” she said, adding that one female police officer had been injured by flying stones.

“The road was barricaded, vehicles travelling on that road were stoned, private vehicles as well as heavy-armed policed vehicles.”

She said that police had made eight arrests, but the situation was still “very tense and hostile”.

Implats said on Thursday it has lost R1.2bn in revenue from the strike at its Rustenburg operations, about 120 km northwest of Johannesburg. The company warned that its total output and earnings for the remainder for the financial year would also be hit.

Production at Rustenburg, which accounts for 60% of Implats’ total output, came to a halt last month after the company sacked about 17 000 employees following a wildcat strike over bonuses.

Chief executive David Brown told reporters on a conference call the company had re-hired about 6 000 of the dismissed workers. He said he could not give an expected date for when the operations would be back up.

The strike is costing the company an average of 3 000 ounces a day, or 60 000 oz so far, as the platinum-rich mines remain shut.

Cost of business

Putting up with lengthy and often costly mining strikes is familiar terrain for investors in South Africa, which is home to some of the world’s deepest and most dangerous mines.
 
Mineworkers are increasingly looking for better pay in return for the hazardous jobs and the government is pushing for an industry-wide improvement in safety.

“The government is quite correctly very concerned around safety issues and until those issues get fixed it is going to cost these guys a lot of money,” said Nic Norman-Smith, a portfolio manager at Lentus Asset Management in Johannesburg.

Shares of Implats tumbled 3.3% to R159.36, making it the worst performer among Johannesburg’s benchmark Top-40.

Implats said it lost an additional 33 000 oz in the final four months from government-ordered safety stops. Some industry executives have criticised the government’s safety push as too restrictive.

Output has also fallen across the industry as a result of the government’s crackdown, helping push the spot platinum price up 17% so far this year.

While lost production is preventing Implats from taking full advantage of the recent recovery in the platinum price, the company cashed in on higher prices in its first half as the weaker rand bolstered the price it receives for its product.

Headline earnings were 573 cents per share for the six months to the end-December, a huge spike from 345c/share in the same period the previous year.

The platinum price fell during the period, but that was counterbalanced by a sharp decline in the rand which Implats said resulted in exchange gains of R608m.