cradock

If you want to email this page to more than one person, just put a semicolon “;” between the email addresses.

CONTACT US | ABOUT US | SEND US NEWS | ADVERTISING RATES |

moc.ytinummoczib@selas | +27 (0)21 680 3500 | +27 (0)11 612 3003

ADSL Web hosting proudly provided by Afrihost. All rights reserved. © 2012. Bizcommunity.com, its sponsors, contributors and advertisers disclaim all liability for any loss, damage, injury or expense that might arise from the use of, or reliance upon, the services contained herein. Privacy policy, Terms of Use, PAIA.

ENERGY giant Shell has moved to punt the economic benefits of shale gas in SA, by commissioning a new study on the subject.

However, not everyone is convinced by the report, produced by Econometrix and released last Friday.

Among its findings is that extracting just a fraction of the estimated shale gas resources in the southern Karoo would contribute R35bn-R90bn to government revenue and generate up to 700000 permanent jobs over 25 years.

“The possible economic impact of shale gas development in the Karoo is undeniable,” Econometrix director Tony Twine says.

“Developments downstream, and induced demand from the income generated by gas finds representing only 4% and 10% of the suspected reserve, could generate massive contributions to GDP (gross domestic product) and create many hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

Econometrix also says the report is intended to provide an insight into the economic opportunities that may arise from gas in the Karoo. Estimates are that the Karoo’s shale gas reserves stand at 450-trillion cubic feet, making it the fifth-largest shale gas field in the world.

“This is big stuff in terms of contribution to GDP, in terms of employment potential. Even if the gas finds turn out to be a lot smaller than the estimate … we are talking about a mighty big fish,” he says.

The US Energy Information Administration forecasts that shale gas will account for 47% of US gas production by 2035.

But sceptics abound.

A few days after publication of the report, opponents of hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”, are dismissing it.

“The report has clearly been commissioned by Shell, which already calls its independence into question. I also have a great problem with the report of two weeks ago from Ipsos Markinor, which showed 85% of South Africans were in favour of fracking, which was also sponsored by Shell,” says Jonathan Deal, chairman of the Treasure the Karoo Action Group.

“I am sceptical of anything that is published by oil and industry anywhere that promotes their own interests. They have a history of publishing statistics that suit theoretical objectives which frequently do not represent the true picture.”

There is no scientific consensus on shale gas mining. In the US, a debate is raging. Teams of scientist are pitted against each other, contesting each other’s results, says Mr Deal.

“There is no consensus yet on the employment figures in terms of the jobs created and jobs destroyed, where you have agricultural and tourism jobs replaced by mining and drilling jobs,” he says. There is also no reliable information on how much gas could be extracted by fracking, Mr Deal says.

“The average gas well yields in the US are depleting so fast that from full yield on its first day, within 36 to 48 months it is offering subeconomic yields.”

The Econometrix report omits mention of possible environmental costs, Mr Deal says.

Peet du Plooy of Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS), a research institute, is sceptical about the job estimates in the report.

“It is a well-established fact that renewable energy provides more jobs per unit of capacity, unit of energy or unit of investment than any other form of electricity generation. Recent estimates by the Industrial Development Corporation, Development Bank of Southern Africa and TIPS put the total job creation potential for renewables over the long term (by 2025) at just under 120000 jobs.

“Coal mining, which is much more labour-intensive than ‘mining’ gas, employs around 50000 people, while one of Eskom’s giant coal power stations employs only 600-800 people. To arrive at 700000 jobs — more people than are employed in the entire mining sector — the authors would have had to be very liberal in their assumptions and also included indirect and induced jobs.”

Mr du Plooy says it would have been tough for such a report to look into externality costs — better understood as risk factors. “For shale gas we are talking about risk — uncertainty regarding costs — rather than cost. If shale gas could be safely extracted it would have lower externality costs in carbon, sulphur and particulate emissions than coal or oil, but higher externality costs (at least in terms of these factors) than renewable energy or nuclear. It would have a lower externalised cost in water use than coal, oil, unsustainable biofuels or solar thermal energy, but worse water costs than nuclear, wind or solar photovoltaic energy.

“How much worse or better is a matter of speculation and depends also on how the shale gas is applied, such as whether it is used to substitute coal-based electricity or coal-or oil-based liquid fuel,” he says.

Given that the report was commissioned, any speculation regarding externality costs suffers from a lack of credibility, he says. On the contribution to GDP, Mr du Plooy says the effect of shale gas on competitor industries such as coal should be considered. “Unless all the shale gas is exported, it will replace other industries like coal, leading to a lower net impact on GDP.”

He says the report points to a lack of access to electricity as a driver for exploiting shale gas. “This lack of access concerns mostly rural households, and for them the issue is a lack of access to the grid. Electricity from shale gas still faces the same challenge.”

With Nicky Smith

About 73% of South Africans were in favour of exploring whether natural gas was present in the Karoo and the same proportion would be in favour of gas extraction, a survey showed on Monday.

An opinion poll – conducted by market researcher Ipsos on behalf of Shell – found that most adult South Africans were unaware of the potential exploration for natural gas in the Karoo. But, when introduced to the concept, the majority were in favour of determining the presence of natural gas in the basin.

Ipsos polled 2 006 South Africans on exploration for natural gas, using face-to-face interviews, to allow 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.

“Respondents clearly desire more information. They want to know if there is gas, how it will benefit them and what the impact will be,” Ipsos director of public affairs Mari Harris said.

Shell has applied for permission to explore for shale gas in the Karoo using hydraulic fracturing. The process involves forcing a mixture of 99% water and sand, with 1% chemicals into shale formations deep underground to release natural gas.

The Treasure the Karoo Action Group believes that hydraulic fracturing would harm the environment.

The poll found 86% of South Africans were unaware of the possible exploration for natural gas in the Karoo and only 12% indicated that they had heard the term ‘hydraulic fracturing’ before.

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.

However, in spite of the very low awareness, when asked, more than seven in every ten adult South Africans, or 73% were in favour of determining the presence of natural gas in the Karoo. If natural gas were proven to be present in the Karoo, the same proportion of residents would be in favour of gas extraction.

However, if shale gas was found, the proportion of those who were strongly in favour for extraction increased from 39%, to 45%, while the proportion of those in opposition decreased to 21%, with a group of 6% now uncertain as to how they feel about the issue.

After the ideas of supporters of hydraulic fracturing were presented, about seven in every ten, or 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 66% of the population.

The study highlighted that job security and job creation remain very important issues in South Africa and 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, or 39% want information about how it will improve the supply of and access to electricity.

More information about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing was important to 41% and a third would like to know how clean burning natural gas would be.
 

Sanlam

Get Sanlam’s view on the Budget Speech

It was Fugard’s writings that first enticed me to experience that most pleasant of Karoo outings: walking through a small village’s deserted streets in the “late frost-sharp hour”, looking to the trees for “companionship”.

“The sense of them alive and awake, their huge black presences magnified still further by faint starlight, is quite awesome.”

So, it was reminiscing of the acacia, ash and pepper-treed streets of my previous hometown (Aberdeen) in the Karoo that I set off with my girlfriend down the oak avenues of Greyton, late on a Friday night.

Hand in hand, we wandered the dirt tracks, accompanied by soft green verges, post and rail fences and the tinkling of the stream on our right. With trails of steam surrounding his head, a friendly horse whinnied a greeting to us as we passed. But it was the sky and its firmament of stars, seen through the network of naked oak-tree branches, that got most of our attention. Even leafless, these ponderous old giants evoke a stout vitality and a brooding sense of wisdom.

It seems that oaks were planted in Greyton as early as 1795 by Martin Theunissen, owner of the farm Weltevrede. Apparently he received the saplings from the neighbouring mission village of Genadendal, who in turn received them from the Castle in Cape Town to decorate their “werf”. With oak trees planted along the road all the way up to his front door, it is thought that Theunissen probably copied the example set by the Cloetes of Groot Constantia.

The next morning, we woke with a bang. Well, technically we were already awake, but probably not fully compos mentis when I decided to light the gas fire to ward off the chill. The plan was to thaw out in front of the hearth with a cup of coffee before unleashing ourselves on Greyton’s extensive and eclectic range of shops and eateries.

I’d followed the instructions carefully, but after twiddling the relevant knobs, nothing happened. I was giving the lighting procedure a third try, when “Whum!”, the fire exploded into life with the force of a napalm bomb and my heart lodged firmly in my throat. I made a mental note to have one less cappuccino on our high-street excursion.

One of the first shops we visited was A Little Bizarre – trinkets and treasures it advertised. We came away with some exotic eastern stockings, some beautiful costume jewellery and armloads of incense. Next was The Inside Story, with antiques, collectables, décor items and artworks. We got talking to the owner, Carol Gibbs, veteran shopkeeper, artist and raconteur, and were fascinated by her stories of her recent travels to the East. She said she’d decided one day: “I’m not getting any younger, I’m going to blow my pension and travel India.” And, judging from the glint in her eye and her effervescent demeanor, she made the right decision.

Paul Leger’s Snob’s Guide to Budget Getaways talks of the Oak and Vigne restaurant as “the flavour of the day amongst the Greyton trendset”. He may be right, but I think of it as a charming place to sit under the oaks and watch the passing parade on a summer’s day; or to lunch on fine food in front of the fire inside during winter.

Choosing the latter, we snuggled up near the fire and drank cappuccinos with whisky, a perfect way to unwind after a morning of browsing and shopping in this one-of-a-kind Overberg village.

Some think Greyton is too chichi for a country village, that it’s lost its authenticity. I call it the very best of both worlds.

If you go…

Where it is: Francolin Cottage is at 30 Caledon Street in Greyton. Turn right off the main road at the first four-way stop.

What it has:  The quaint cottage has two en-suite bedrooms, one with a king-sized bed and the other with two singles. It’s equipped for self-catering, and has a braai area and garden with a stream running through it, plus a pool.

Why go there: To relax with your loved ones in the quiet country surrounds, though there are shopping and gourmet eat-out options galore. For the adventurous, there are mountain-biking and cycling, walking and hiking trails (you can do the Boesmanskloof trail as a one- or two-day outing), horse-riding, 4×4 trails, plus bowls and tennis facilities.

The food: Self-catering but “basket breakfasts” and other home-cooked meals available on request.

Rates: R950 for the first two adults and R150 per adult, or R100 per child thereafter.

Contact: Call Jéan and Mary Faure on 0283140571, visit www.francolincottage.co.za or e-mail info@francolincottage.co.za.

Independent Newspapers

Opponents of fracking march in Cape Town last year, but economists say it will be difficult to ignore the benefits of gas. Photo: Brenton Geach.

South Africa is potentially blessed with a multibillion-rand treasure in shale gas buried underground in the vast Karoo, according to a study commissioned by one of the principal potential players in the industry, Royal Dutch Shell.

Speaking at the release of the study on Friday, Econometrix economist Tony Twine estimated that reserves of 485 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of shale gas could be lurking in the Karoo. He glowingly described this as the equivalent of 400 years of oil consumption in South Africa.

The report, which assesses the potential macroeconomic benefits of hydraulic fracturing, argues that if there was only 4 percent of the estimated reserve, or 20tcf, it would boost South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) by R80 billion and government revenue by R35bn a year. It would create 300 000 permanent jobs.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the controversial process of injecting water and chemicals under high pressure into the earth’s surface to extract shale gas.

If these figures proved to be even better, 50tcf would translate into a GDP boost of R90bn. A higher reserve could translate into a R200bn boost or 700 000 jobs in the region, where unemployment is believed to be well over 50 percent.

Jonathan Deal of the Treasure the Karoo Action Group said the fact that the report was paid for by Shell undermined its integrity.

“It is a one-sided and unbalanced document,” said Deal, who has a farm near Molteno and has been fighting against applications by Shell and other multinational companies to prospect for shale gas.

He said an earlier survey finding that 75 percent of South Africans supported fracking was also questionable as it had been paid for by Shell.

In the Econometrix survey, Twine had simply reflected the views of those who were paying him, Deal said.

In reaction Bonang Mohale, Shell South Africa’s chairman, said the majority view would prevail. That, he argued, was the view that fracking should go ahead. “This is probably bigger than the discovery of gold in Gauteng,” he said.

Should fracking go ahead, about $220 million (R1.6bn) would be spent during the first exploration phase, which he said would take place on just 1 percent of the 900 000km2 that the Karoo covers.

Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu’s spokesman was not able to comment at this stage and it is unclear when her moratorium on shale gas prospecting would be lifted.

Twine, who led the research team, said that to walk away from high values like those mentioned in the report “is going to be a difficult decision”.

The economy was heavily reliant on its energy sector and such a large scale development of shale gas would ease the energy deficit, making it cheaper to turbo-charge economic growth and reduce imports of natural gas and electricity.

About 67 percent of current oil consumption was imported and 65 percent of natural gas was piped in from Mozambique, he pointed out.

Econometrix managing director Rob Jeffrey acknowledged environmental concerns around fracking in other parts of the world, including the US, but he believed that the risks would be taken into account. The purpose of the report was to quantify the potential worth of shale gas in the Karoo.

Former ANC Western Cape leader Chris Nissen, a spokesman for the Karoo Shale Gas Community Forum, said the organisation told National Planning Commission hearings that there was a plethora of legislation to ensure proper monitoring and compliance “with regard to the environment”.

Shale gas extraction was needed “to defeat and destroy poverty… not to destroy the environment”, Nissen said.

Supporters of extraction have focused on the industrial, commercial and domestic fuel use of the natural gas. It can be converted into liquid fuels and burned to generate electricity. – Sungula Nkabinde and Donwald Pressly

A FRESH positive test result for the H5N2 avian flu virus in the Klein Karoo has dashed hope the industry could resume trade this month with the European Union (EU), its biggest ostrich export market.

South African Ostrich Business Chamber interim CEO Piet Kleyn said yesterday that the test result came after the eighth round of tests in February since the virus was first detected on a farm near Oudtshoorn in April last year.

The latest case was found on a farm near De Rust, east of Oudtshoorn, in an area that had previously been virus-free.

“It is not clear when exports will resume. The resumption of meat exports will be negotiated with trading partners (in the EU), once the identified shortcomings in the current system have been addressed and recommendations have been implemented,” the chamber said.

The EU used to import 90% of SA’s ostrich meat and Brazil imported 15 tons of feathers, but with the ban in place Mr Kleyn said the financial status of the industry was “terrible”.

“The latest calculations show we are losing R108m per month in the industry,” he said.

A plan to have the Eden District, which included the Klein Karoo, declared a disaster area so that the ostrich industry could access provincial and national relief funding was making little progress, he said.

“We don’t want to be too critical because we understand that it is difficult to apply the various steps that need to be taken to declare a disaster, but so far nothing much has been achieved.”

Since the start of the outbreak last April, the industry has lost an estimated R1bn and culled about 41000 birds.

There is no market for ostrich chicks due to the movement restrictions that are in place while the virus remains active and farms which have had their flocks culled will not be allowed to restock until the area is disease-free for three months — the incubation period of the virus.

The EU will consider resuming trade only once the industry has been disease-free for three months, and has put in place various disease-control measures.

The ostrich industry, along with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, had asked international bird flu experts from the EU to evaluate the sustainability of the industry.

“The experts advised that the industry must be restructured in order to be sustainable. The biggest changes that would have to be implemented are to limit movement of ostriches and implementing stricter biosecurity measures on farms,” Mr Kleyn said.

In order to remain sustainable, the density of ostrich populations in certain areas would need to be reduced, while a reliable, sustainable disease-control system would need to be put in place to ensure other susceptible birds did not become ill.

Garden Route Media

It is with a strange feeling of déjà vu that I read of the contretemps over the statement made in Parliament on February 16 by Pieter Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front Plus and the deputy minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, to the effect that black people had no claim to 40% of South Africa. Mulder rejected the claim that white people had stolen land and continued: “In the Karoo and Kalahari huge farms are available. Why does the department not buy some of that land to reach their 30% [redistribution of land] quicker?”

No less startling than Mulder’s statement was the discussion on SAFM on February 21. Callers asserted, on the one hand, that there had been no research on the history of Africans in the subcontinent and, on the other, that it was “racist” even to bring up the question of the appropriation of land in South Africa or, indeed, to talk of “African” history. The ignorance on all sides was obvious.

In fact, for all the outrage it caused, Mulder’s claim that about 40% of Southern Africa had not been settled by “Bantu-speaking Africans” when the Dutch arrived at the Cape is not particularly contentious, though one might quibble over the percentages. His suggested remedy to the land problem is, however, extraordinary.

Semidesert has never been attractive to farmers: it is hardly a coincidence that neither black nor white farmers have rushed to cultivate the underpopulated Karoo and Namaqualand. This said, however, by the time the first Europeans rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the late 1400s, it is clear that African agropastoralist communities had long been settled on the well-watered summer-rainfall land suited to their crops and cattle, from the Kei River to the Limpopo.

The Karoo and Kalahari are still sparsely populated today — whether by white or black farmers — precisely because they were and are semidesert. Nor had Bantu-speaking agropastoralists colonised the better-watered Western Cape, where the winter-rainfall regime was unsuited to the cultivation of sorghum and millet, their staple crops.

Yet the Western Cape was hardly unoccupied when the Europeans arrived. Southern Africa had been inhabited for millennia by hunter-gatherers as well as, somewhat later, by herders. If the lands to the east and north of the Orange River were largely populated by Bantu-speaking agropastoralists, the admittedly sparser population of Khoisan herders and hunter-gatherers predominated to the west and northwest.

There is no argument then about these settlement patterns — but they make Mulder’s notion that the solution to African landlessness lies in the Kalahari bizarre. Like so many of the responses on SAFM, it reveals the longevity of apartheid ideology, in which the struggle over South Africa’s land and water from the beginnings of white settlement was denied. As is well known, apartheid-era propaganda asserted that by a quite remarkable coincidence the present-day African inhabitants of South Africa crossed its northern frontier, the Limpopo River, very conveniently at more or less the same moment as the first European settlers landed at its southern tip, the Cape of Good Hope, in the mid-1600s. They were therefore purported to be as recent in arrival as the whites.

Behind this lay two further myths: that the incoming agropastoralists destroyed all the previous Stone Age inhabitants of the subcontinent, who could be safely left out of account thereafter, and that the present-day location of the African population of South Africa is both a simple reflection of these original migrations and of the internecine Africans wars of the early 19th century known as the mfecane. Thus a former South African prime minister could roundly declare: “The fact that 13% of the land in the Republic is Bantu and 87% is occupied by whites is a division decreed by history.”

These views persisted because they provided a charter to the land and formed part of the ideological justification for apartheid. Yet all three aspects of the “myth of the empty land” can be — and have been — challenged by research. Archaeological evidence and, especially, carbon dating show that Iron Age agropastoralist farmers, who were the precursors of the contemporary Bantu-speaking population, were present in the Transvaal and Natal areas by the 200s to 400s of the common era. By the end of the first millennium they had populated most of the summer-rainfall areas suitable to the cultivation of sorghum and millet and to cattle-keeping.

CONTINUES BELOW
Click here

Far from sweeping all before them, they occupied the land at least in part through the incorporation of the earlier hunter-gatherers and herders. Artefacts and skeletal evidence from early Iron Age archaeological sites reveal the complex relationships established between the Khoisan and South Africa’s first farmers; linguistic evidence and oral tradition also reveal close interactions between people of different physical types, language and ways of life — interactions that undoubtedly included conflict and warfare, but also included intermarriage, peaceful coexistence and cultural borrowing for well over a thousand years before the arrival of the Dutch and which continued into the 1800s.

That there was warfare in KwaZulu-Natal and its hinterland in the early 1800s is undoubted, though the extent of depopulation has been greatly exaggerated. When the Voortrekkers expanded beyond the Cape Colony in the late 1830s, they entered a vibrant and complex African world. To establish themselves they had to fight major wars and establish a series of accommodations with the Africans whom they were unable to dislodge from the land. Contrary to yet another myth, one maintaining that had it not been for British intervention the Afrikaners would have established themselves effortlessly as “the undisputed masters of South Africa”, it was only in the last third of the 19th century that many of the more powerful African peoples were conquered — usually by the British army rather than by the Voortrekkers.

The land still in African possession in the 20th century was the result of wars of resistance to colonial dispossession and legislative design — as well as, from the late 1800s on, of the intense conflict over land and the terms of rural labour that accompanied South Africa’s slow transition to capitalist farming. The 1913 Land Act played a crucial role in restricting access to the land as independent African peasants, sharecroppers and tenants were transformed into a highly exploited labour force.

In the process the confrontations, especially between the marginalised Afrikaners and Africans, were often fierce, frequently brutal and framed in a virulently racist discourse. Well into the 20th century, Africans who in their own words “still regarded the country as their own” resisted exploitation and expropriation through a variety of individual and collective strategies. This is the history the “myth of the empty land” seeks to bury.

As Professor ZK Matthews, one of South Africa’s first and finest African academics, recalled in Freedom for My People: “Our history as we had absorbed it bore no resemblance to South African history as it had been written by European scholars, or as it is taught in South African schools, and as it was taught to us at Fort Hare. The European insisted that we accept his version of the past … if we wanted to get ahead educationally, even to pass examinations in the subject as he presents it.”

From the late 1960s this “white version” of African history was increasing challenged. Both in Britain and the United States, historians of Africa turned from the history of the “great white man” in Africa to more inclusive, chronologically deeper and more radical versions of the past, informed by oral narratives and linguistic and archaeological evidence. By the 1970s, a revisionist version of South Africa’s past was being researched and taught in departments of history and archaeology in some of South Africa’s Anglophone universities.

For the most part, however, this revisionist history was researched and written almost exclusively by white historians. Inevitably, the deliberate stunting of black education by Nationalist Party governments before 1990 meant that the country produced far too few black scholars in general and even fewer black historians in particular. Those who survived the appalling manipulations and mutilations of history taught in South African schools during the apartheid era were shunted off to the so-called “tribal colleges” in the bantustans, where teaching was poor and critical thought stifled. There was no chance to introduce the new social history to black schools and few precious opportunities of doing so in the government-controlled institutions of tertiary learning in the so-called “black homelands”. There was little to attract black scholars into the fold. It is hardly surprising, then, that in 1994 there were few takers for a much-hated discipline, but it is extremely disappointing that more than a dozen years later both a minister and a radio debate can be so misinformed, especially because, thanks to the National Research Foundation, a renewed dialogue between South African historians and archaeologists is beginning to reveal the depth and complexity of South Africa’s precolonial past.

Yet, as the report of the commission appointed by Kader Asmal more than a decade ago to inquire into the teaching of history and archaeology in South Africa emphasised: “Promoting a strong study of the past is a particular educational imperative in a country like South Africa, which is itself consciously remaking its current history. In conditions of flux, historical study of a probing kind is a vital aid against amnesia and a warning against any triumphalism in the present.”

It is thus particularly shaming that a minister and much of his — and SAFM’s — audience should be so ignorant of South Africa’s struggle over land.

Shula Marks is emeritus professor at the University of London’s school of oriental and African studies and has lectured and written widely on South African history. She published a widely cited article on The Myth of the Empty Land in 1980

Karoo farmer can’t wait to invite flying saucer aliens to his braai

02 Mar 2012

A RESIDENT of the tiny Karoo village of Willowmore has the town talking with his picture of a pink flying saucer hovering in the air.

According to those who have seen it, this UFO — “bigger than a sheep truck hubcap” hangs in the air for a long time, with lights flashing brightly, and then disappears at very high speed in an easterly direction.

Some residents can’t wait for the UFO to land, so that they can shake hands with little green men.

“There’s always brandy and meat on my farm. What could be better than a genuine South African braai,” said Pepi van der Merwe. “We could also dance — I’ve got a jukebox.”

But others reckon that’s the kind of thing you’re likely to see if you eat or smoke “parrot salad” [dagga].

Or else it’s the neighbouring Steytlerville’s ghost that’s become mobile. They quite like its pink mode of transport. Silver has become so boring.

But jokes aside …

An increasing number of “high-ups” have become interested in the Karoo since it became known that it contains large shale gas resources — so could this be a gas exploration satellite?

“Hmm … Shell Undercover …” was the response of Baviaans mayor Ewald Loock, adding that it is definitely no outer-space flying saucer or satellite.

He knows, because he sees these “flying saucers” regularly while taking schoolchildren to Oudtshoorn by bus late every Sunday afternoon.

“When the sun starts setting and smoke, dust or moisture moves in front of it at a certain angle, the refracted rays form their own prism and make the most beautiful patterns.

“Once I saw with my own eyes a pink seven being formed. Now if I hadn’t known better I would have got the fright of my life and said the devil’s number is no longer 666, but 7.”

Van der Merwe has suggested that Loock wear a cyclist’s crash helmet with a camera mounted on it the next time he drives his school bus.

“I want to sit and gaze at those photos and mourn the fact that with his scientific explanation the mayor has now dashed all my hopes of being able to say ‘good evening’ to little Mars men,” Van der Merwe said.

A study commissioned by Royal Dutch
Shell Plc (RDSA) about the potential of shale gas in South Africa
doesn’t consider the risks related to developing the deposits,
according to an environmental group.

“The findings are lacking in balance to the extent that
one must call the objectivity and credibility of the analysis
into question,” Jonathan Deal, chairman of Treasure the Karoo
Action Group, said in an e-mailed statement today. The study
doesn’t include costs related to “damaged road infrastructure,
health remediation costs, pollution remediation and
environmental monitoring and enforcement of standards.”

The government has stopped shale licensing as it studies
the impact of allowing companies including Shell, Falcon Oil
Gas Ltd. (FO) and Bundu Oil and Gas (Pty) Ltd. to drill in the area.
Exploration companies pump chemically-treated water and sand
underground to release oil or gas trapped in rock, a process
known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Development of about 10 percent of South Africa’s shale gas
reserves would add as much as 200 billion rand ($27 billion)
annually to the economy, Johannesburg-based consultant
Econometrix (Pty) Ltd. said in a report released yesterday.

Treasure Karoo Action Group and residents of the arid Karoo
region of South Africa went to court to force the Department of
Mineral Resources to release a report on the impact of fracking
on the environment. The department will finish the report this
month, according to court filings.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Andres R. Martinez in Johannesburg at
amartinez28@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Andrew J. Barden at
barden@bloomberg.net

• LinkedIn
• Google +1
• Print

EXTRACTING even a fraction of the estimated shale-gas reserves in the Karoo could contribute R35bn-R90bn to government revenue and generate up to 700000 permanent jobs over two and a half decades, according to a report by Econometrix, the economic research provider.

The report, sponsored by Shell, the oil company that is seeking permission to start extracting for the gas, was launched in Johannesburg on Friday morning.

It measured the potential impact of shale-gas development on the South African economy, assuming a constant price of $8 per 1000 cubic feet and a rand/dollar exchange rate of R7,303.

The US Energy Information Administration estimates there are about 485-trillion cubic feet of shale-gas reserves in the southern Karoo.

Extracting between 4% (20-trillion cubic feet) and 10% (20-trillion cubic feet) of the estimated shale-gas resources would have an economic impact of R80bn-R200bn a year on South Africa’s gross domestic product, Econometrix said.

Average government revenue would be between R35bn and R90bn a year, and the process would generate 300000-700000 permanent jobs for a period of 25 years, it said.

“This is a lot of money, a lot of jobs. To walk away from values like these is going to be a difficult decision,” said Tony Twine, economist and managing director at Econometrix.

“The case for gas is truly compelling,” said Bonang Mohale, chairman of Shell South Africa.

Mr Twine also said large-scale shale-gas development might ease South Africa’s energy deficit, making it easier for the country to grow.

“If we want to grow (the economy), we must find a whole lot of energy to drive the economy,” he said, adding that if the amount of shale gas lying 4000m-5000m below the surface of the Karoo was confirmed, it could provide the equivalent of 400 years’ worth of energy consumption in South Africa.

OPPOSITION

Shale-gas exploration in the Karoo has, however, run into stiff opposition due to the “fracking” technique used to extract the gas.

There is a government moratorium on fracking, which involves injecting millions of litres of water, chemicals and sand into the earth at high pressure to free pockets of natural gas.

The Econometrix report “has clearly been commissioned by Shell, which already calls its independence into question”, said Jonathan Deal, chairman of the Treasure the Karoo Action Group, on Friday.

“I am sceptical of anything that is published by oil and industry anywhere that promotes their own interests. They have a history of publishing statistics that suits theoretical objectives that frequently do not represent the true picture,” he added.

“There is no consensus yet on the employment figures in terms of the jobs created and jobs destroyed, where you have agricultural and tourism jobs replaced by mining and drilling jobs,” Mr Deal said, adding that there also was no reliable data on how much gas could be extracted by fracking. “The average gas-well yields in the US are depleting so fast that from full yield on its first day, within 36-48 months it is offering sub-economic yields.”

The Econometrix report also made no mention of the possible environmental impact of fracking, Mr Deal said. “Should aquifers in this country become contaminated, it doesn’t matter how much money you have got, you cannot fix it. It is physically impossible to remove it, clean it and put it back. We are an arid country, and by 2025 we won’t have enough water.”

On Friday, another new report said that scientific tests in Poland had found that extracting shale gas produced some toxic waste but that the waste was reused and did not harm the environment.

The report was compiled by the Polish Geological Institute, which carried out a study last year when Canadian Lane Energy began test-drilling in northern Poland.

It said some highly toxic liquid waste and some solid refuse was generated by fracking, but that it was all reused. Laboratory studies found no pollution to ground water, soil or air, it said.

In South Africa, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu set up a task team in April last year to investigate the impact of fracking. In August, she extended a moratorium in applications for licences to prospect for shale gas using fracking for a further six months.

According to Ms Shabangu, the task team is expected to forward its report to the Cabinet by March 31.

With NICKY SMITH, SAPA and SAPA-AP