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Treasure Karoo Action Group (TKAG) chairman Jonathan Deal speaking at a press conference on Monday. Picture: Thomas Holder

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Cape Town – The Treasure Karoo Action Group (TKAG) says donations for its fight against fracking have been pouring in since the government lifted the moratorium on exploration for shale gas last week.

TKAG chairman Jonathan Deal said the organisation had received support from all over the world and that it had raised just over R100 000 over the weekend.

Collins Chabane, the Minister in the Presidency, announced last week that the moratorium had been lifted and that the cabinet had approved the report drawn up by the task team established to explore the viability of shale gas exploration.

Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu is expected to brief the media on Tuesday on the technical task team’s report.

Deal said they were ready to take the matter to the Constitutional Court but would first wait to see the exploration licences that would be given to companies.

Deal said fracking had been banned or restricted in 155 jurisdictions around the world and that TKAG research revealed fatal flaws in the environmental management plans (EMPs) of the three current applicants, Royal Dutch Shell, Bundu and Falcon.

“These flaws mean that the plans of the applicants are at odds with various South African laws and regulations as well as the constitution of the country,” Deal said.

“In addition to this, the internationally critical reputation of fracking, and the rejection of the destructive polluting technology by tens of millions of people in other countries has never been dealt with by our government (despite formal notification of these facts to our cabinet by TKAG) nor by any of the applicants to mine for shale gas in SA.”

Deal said there were other less harmful and more sustainable ways to create jobs, generate energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) chief executive Neren Rau said environmental concerns needed to be balanced against potential economic benefits.

“SACCI believes that apart from making South Africa less reliant on imported energy sources, the benefits that will result from the exploitation of gas reserves will include the creation of sorely needed jobs,” said Rau.

Meanwhile, Bishop Geoff Davies, executive director of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute, said the decision to lift the moratorium was irresponsible.

“This decision is particularly disturbing as South Africa hosted COP17, the climate talks, and should know well the reality of climate change,” Davies said.

Saliem Fakir, head of WWF-SA’s Living Planet Unit, said the organisation maintained its scepticism on the issue of fracking.

The moratorium “should have remained in place so that environmental externalities, such as the water and carbon footprint associated with shale gas exploration, could be properly interrogated”.

“The shale gas issue has been handled in an appalling manner. That the task team’s brief and findings have still not been disclosed is extremely disconcerting,” Fakir said. – Cape Argus

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Calls on me, among others, to boycott the Shell oil company and Woolworths, have left me in a quandary.

Naturally I am against fracking up the Karoo, and believe that if Jan Willem Eggink of Royal Dutch Shell really believes it’s such a wonderful thing, he first should try doing it at home in Holland. If he finds it pollutes the polders, it will be Dutch egg on his face rather than South African.

But to give him 90 000 square kilometres of our own thirsty land to play |with seems to be generosity on our government’s part beyond the call of commercial greed.

Yes, I know Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said the Karoo shale gas was “a gift of God” to South Africa, though I’m not so sure she and her government are. The region’s artesian water is also a gift of God, and I’m willing to bet He’s opposed to mixing it up with toxic chemicals that can turn it into a wasteland.

So how to protest? If I stopped filling up my car at Shell garages, would it have any effect?

I can just imagine a Shell board meeting: “There’s a chap in Claremont who no longer patronises our filling station. I believe there are also others like him. I think we should abandon our plans to frack. In fact, why don’t we all frack off.”

Also, I have got to know the petrol attendants at our local garage. I’d hate to see them being told to frack off because business was bad. They wouldn’t be offered alternative employment contaminating the water at Fraserburg and Victoria West, either. If only I could boycott the government instead, but I haven’t yet thought of a way.

Then there’s Woolies. I’d be walking round practically naked were it not for that store’s clothing on my back.

But the Solidarity trade union thinks we should stop buying its goods in protest against its advertisements for black African staff only. Apparently the advertisement was an attempt to conform to the Employment Equity Act.

I know how glad we were while trying to meet the law’s demands some years ago when it turned out that one of our senior journalists was both black (well, brown actually) and disabled. It was a two-in-one achievement.

So Woolworths has my sympathy. Personally I don’t care who serves me, so long as they are polite, helpful and friendly, and I only take exception when labelled prices don’t match the bar coding (always to the customer’s disadvantage). Whether that has anything to do with employment equity is anyone’s guess.

But excluding coloured people as well as whites from their ads does seem extreme, and has caused former Cape Town mayor Peter Marais to spring out of the woodwork and complain on behalf of his “brown empowerment movement”. He asks: “In the absence of the race classification law, how will they determine who are black Africans and who are not?”

Maybe Woolies have their vays und means. The store’s chief executive Ian Moir insisted: “Woolworths does employ white people.” Probably they are just well hidden.

For the moment, Woolworths can count on my continued support, and if I see any white staff I’ll report back to Solidarity immediately. But I’m still in two minds about whether it will do any good telling Shell to go to hell.

johnvscott@mweb.co.za

Donwald Pressly

The state is gearing up to play a significant role in the extraction of shale gas in the Karoo, mirroring the role state-owned companies play in other mining sectors, including coal and diamonds.

Announcing some of the details of the report on hydraulic fracturing by the task team, of which a working group was led by the Petroleum Agency SA (Pasa), Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu noted yesterday that the government was playing a role in the extraction of coal in Mpumalanga through a state-owned company.

In a similar way it was likely that a state-owned company would be involved in the shale gas business in the Karoo, Shabangu said at a media briefing in Parliament.

The government is also involved to a limited extent in diamond mining through Alexkor, which has largely loss-making operations at Alexander Bay in the Northern Cape.

Although Shabangu did not spell it out, it is likely that gas-to-oil parastatal PetroSA will play a role if and when the new industry gets under way.

Shabangu did not release the full report, which recommended the lifting of an 18-month moratorium on shale gas exploration and the reopening of the licensing process. Her spokesman, Zingaphi Jakuja, said this was because the report had to be “professionally edited”. It is now expected to be released on the department’s website on Friday.

Pressed by Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG) national co-ordinator Jonathan Deal on why the government had not allowed public participation in the drawing up of the task team report, the minister said the government had not been certain of its position regarding a new form of mining and it needed to finalise its stances before it went through a public participation process.

That process would now begin in earnest, she said.

Responding to questions on whether the state would defend threatened legal action in the courts, the minister said that the state had taken a stance – in favour of fracking – and it now had “an obligation” to defend its position in court.

TKAG has already announced that it would appeal to the department against the decision to give fracking the green light, but expected that it would have to go to the high court and ultimately the Constitutional Court.

The working group visited Pennsylvania and Texas in the US to study shale gas exploitation. Pasa had concluded that, owing to the limited data available, it was impossible to quantify the Karoo resource accurately “other than to say that it is potentially very large”.

The group recommended that “normal exploration”, such as drilling to determine the extent of the gas seam, be allowed, but this would exclude “the actual” hydraulic fracturing, dubbed fracking, at this point. It recommended that a monitoring committee be established. Appropriate regulations would take up to a year.

Meanwhile, the Karoo Shale Gas Community Forum’s co-ordinator, Chris Nissen, which represents farmworkers and urban dwellers in the Karoo who back shale gas extraction, said it had opted to work through legal aid clinics.

“We want to take the TKAG and Jonathan Deal to the Human Rights Commission. We believe he is undermining people’s chances of being lifted out of poverty,” he said.

One is talking of possibly some R80bn to the annual GDP and 300 000 potential jobs.

–
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ALEC HOGG: Let’s move on to that fracking story now, and pick up with David Constable. Earlier in the week the government decided to lift the moratorium on fracking in the Karoo, so we asked David Constable whether Sasol will be getting involved.
***

DAVID CONSTABLE: We’ve heard about 485trn cubic feet could be under the Karoo of natural gas. We fully supported the moratorium that was put in place by Minister Shabangu at DMR, for the reason that we need to look for best practices worldwide and world-class regulatory frameworks that ensure safe production and environmentally-friendly production of shale gas in the country.
   So that’s happened, we’re very interested and keen to review the findings of the report as Cabinet lifted the moratorium last week, like you said. But also we are keen to evaluate the potential for producing large amounts of shale gas in the country to, like I said, change the energy landscape in the region. Sasol would like to be a part of it if we can do it in an environmentally-friendly fashion.

ALEC HOGG: But you have already put quite a few stakes in the ground with your joint venture – and maybe you could explain this more to us with Chesapeake Energy and Statoil?

DAVID CONSTABLE: Yeah, exactly, in November 2010 we partnered with Chesapeake and Statoil out of Norway and took a technical cooperation permit to evaluate a block of shale gas in the Karoo Basin, outside the main Karoo area. We took that year through November 2011 to evaluate, do desktop studies, and looked at all core samples, and took a decision to not proceed further purely for technical reasons. The rock was not going to be viable for us to produce up there. So, of course, we let that TCP lapse and that was the only reason. We’re definitely still interested in other plays to see if we might be able to move forward with shale gas in the country and, like I said, do it in an environmentally-friendly fashion.

ALEC HOGG: So if, again, to just unpack that a little, was the area that you were exploring not viable, but other areas could be?

DAVID CONSTABLE: That’s exactly right. Like I say, we’re very interested in looking further at other areas which we believe could be much more viable and interesting to us.

ALEC HOGG: Royal Dutch Shell seems to be making all the running there.

DAVID CONSTABLE: Yeah, they’ve got the main block and a lot of it. Probably, like I say, with the numbers that we’re seeing hopefully there’s more than enough to go around.
***

ALEC HOGG: The whole idea of exploring or fracking in the Karoo changed when the late Tony Twine, a great economist, did an analysis of it. His colleague, the managing director of Econometrix, Rob Jeffrey, joins us now.
   Tony’s work seems to be living on, Rob.

ROB JEFFREY: Absolutely, Alec. It was a great tragedy that Tony passed away but he has left us a great legacy. And I think one can carry that forward from here.

ALEC HOGG: It does appear that the environmentalists who’ve opposed fracking in the Karoo have not gone away, and certainly we were watching today on the eNews channel one of their members saying that they will be taking this to the Constitutional Court. What could it be costing the country if all of this gets delayed?

ROB JEFFREY: Well, in the first instance I think the government has made the right decision. It’s a step in the right direction to lift the moratorium and for the country to be able to establish whether or not this substantial potential gas deposit does exist. There’s something like R485trn cubic feet estimated there, and that would last the country and supply the energy need based on production of energy in 2008 or the demand for energy for something like 200 years. On an ongoing basis, once it has been developed and that will take time – there is an exploratory phase and then a development phase and then obviously you’ve got to go into commercial production – that’s all going to take a considerable amount of time. But at the end of the day, once that is developed, one is talking of something like R80bn to the annual GDP and something over 300 000 potential jobs.

ALEC HOGG: So these are enormous numbers, and due to the work that Tony did and you are continuing with. Government’s mind has been changed.

ROB JEFFREY: Well, one would hope so. That does not mean that one should go ahead. The way one should see it is this is an exploratory phase. During that phase one can establish exactly what the potential benefits are and at the same time consider very carefully certain of the cost potential, environmental risks and costs. Those would need to be quantified as well. Our report put what the potential upside was. That was our expertise.

ALEC HOGG: Rob Jeffrey, managing director of Econometrix. It does appear as though it could be huge. In the full podcast today, which is on Moneyweb, David Constable was talking about Sasol’s investments in this kind of area in North America. They are talking about a gas-to-liquids plant being built in Western Canada. They are also going to be introducing a cracker, which is part of a chemical process, in Louisiana. So massive investments going there all due to the ability to bring out the gas from shale deposits in various parts of North America. It has the ability, David says, of revolutionising the United States, pushing it back into heavy industry again.
   Fascinating insight. Let’s see what happens in our country. But it looks like we’ve got the potential too.

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2012-09-07 17:04

There has been mixed reaction to the lifting of the moratorium on fracking in the Karoo. (Duncan Alfreds, News24)

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Cape Town – There has been mixed reaction to Cabinet’s decision, announced on Friday, to lift a moratorium on applications to explore for shale gas in the Karoo.

While AfriForum and the Freedom Front Plus both, in separate statements, condemned it, the Democratic Alliance suggested government proceed cautiously on the matter.

“The DA maintains that we have to proceed cautiously on this issue as the potential benefits in terms of job creation, cheaper energy and increased government revenue needs to be constantly weighed against the potential threats,” DA MP James Lorimer said in a statement.

These included threats to the country’s agriculture sector, water resources and “the environmental integrity of the Karoo”.

He said evidence from other countries where fracking took place “persuades us that it is possible to harvest gas through hydraulic fracturing with low adverse impacts, provided that stringent conditions are put in place”.

Shocked

There were examples across the globe where responsible fracking had taken place.

“The DA believes that it is vital that if fracking is to go ahead, then it must be done according to a set of best-practice guidelines based on lessons learnt from around the world,” Lorimer said.

AfriForum said it was shocked by Cabinet’s decision, and warned it might have “catastrophic” results.

“South Africa is a water-scarce country. It is clear from across the world that fracking destroys ecosystems and, especially, pollutes water,” said the organisation’s environmental affairs head, Marius Kleynhans.

The Karoo was an environmentally sensitive region.

“This area is a very sensitive, semi-desert environment, which will not return to its natural state after such an impact. No matter what precautions are taken, one slip-up or shortcut, and the environment will be contaminated beyond repair,” he said.

AfriForum would take action against the decision through an anti-fracking campaign.

Recommendations

The FF Plus said it noted the Cabinet decision with disapproval.

“The party is of the opinion that there are many examples that serve as sufficient proof that fracking is dangerous to the environment. The ANC government did not at all indicate how fracking can be done responsibly,” FF Plus MP Anton Alberts said.

Earlier, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane told a post-Cabinet media briefing that the decision was based on recommendations contained in the report on shale gas exploration prepared by the technical task team that was appointed in 2011.

This was after the department imposed a moratorium on applications for exploration for shale gas – using the fracking method – in the Karoo, amid concerns of possible environmental impact.

“Cabinet endorsed recommendations of the report on the lifting of the afore-stated moratorium,” Chabane said.

The report would be released by Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu “at the appropriate time”.

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One of the major concerns of environmentalists about fracking has been the possible pollution of the Karoos underground water resources through the liquid used in the fracking process.

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Cape Town – Cabinet has agreed to lifting the moratorium on applications to explore or frack for shale gas in the Karoo.

The decision was based on recommendations contained in the report on shale gas exploration prepared by the technical task team, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane told a post-Cabinet media briefing on Friday.

This was after the department imposed a moratorium on applications for exploration for shale gas, using the fracking method, in the Karoo, amid concerns of possible environmental impact.

“Cabinet endorsed recommendations of the report on the lifting of the afore-stated moratorium.”

Cabinet had further mandated Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu to hold a series of public consultations with interested and affected stakeholders to provide further details, he said.

Responding to questions, Chabane said the fracking was unlikely to affect the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project.

“My understanding of the report is that there will be a buffer zone between where the shale gas exploration will be permitted and where the SKA will be.

“According to scientists this is sufficient enough to ensure neither of the programmes are affected negatively.”

On the lifting of the moratorium, he said shale gas was a mineral resource “we might possibly have”.

But to determine if it was present required a “sequence of steps” to take place.

“The process, in terms of legislation, is that people make applications to explore, then they go into the environmental thing, and, once it’s approved, then they go into exploration. And if they find something, then they go into full production.”

He noted that the issue had “become a national debate”.

However, Cabinet was “satisfied” with the recommendations in the report and the moratorium was lifted.

On when the report would be made public, he said it would be released by Shabangu “at the appropriate time”.

On whether exploration companies would have to resubmit their applications, Chabane said it was the process that had been suspended in terms of the moratorium, not the applications. – Sapa

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2012-09-07 20:16

There has been mixed reaction to the lifting of the moratorium on fracking in the Karoo. (Duncan Alfreds, News24)

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Cape Town – Oil giant Shell is pleased with Cabinet’s decision to lift the moratorium on shale gas exploration in South Africa.

“Shell welcomes this decision. The Karoo Basin offers a potential exploration opportunity for shale gas, which we believe will be instrumental in meeting South Africa’s growing energy demand,” Shell SA chairperson Bonang Mohale said in a statement on Friday.

This would help create sustainable and permanent jobs for South Africans.

According to the statement, Shell would “continue to work closely with local people in the Karoo, and other stakeholders, to address concerns and ensure they benefit from our work”.

It would also “continue to listen to the views of Karoo residents and explain in detail what our plans entail”.

Shell was investing “significant resources” globally in developing natural gas as a cleaner energy source to help meet surging energy demands.

Chamber of commerce sees benefits

Natural gas development, including the potential development in the Karoo, would bring great benefits to local communities through job creation and local business opportunities, it said.

Meanwhile, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said environmental concerns about exploratory fracking must be balanced against the economic benefits it could bring.

“The potential environmental consequences must be balanced against the economic benefits that would accrue to the country should it become more self-reliant in terms of energy resources,” Sacci CEO Neren Rau said in a statement.

Sacci supported the fact that companies wanting to undertake shale gas exploration would have to comply with stringent South African environmental impact assessment standards.

This, Rau said, would “alleviate anxieties relating to fracking from an environmental perspective”.

Sacci believed that apart from making South Africa less reliant on imported energy, the benefits of exploiting shale gas would include the creation of sorely-needed jobs.

Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane said the executive had approved a report drawn up by the task team established to explore the controversial means of extracting gas from shale rock formations deep underground.

The security of energy supply to South Africa had been an important consideration in Cabinet’s decision, Chabane told the media on Friday.

South Africa was “an energy scarce country” and the possibility of discovering a resource like shale gas could alleviate the energy challenges facing the country, he said.  

The task team had deemed that it was “clearly safe to start a programme of exploration for shale”.

Chabane indicated that the task team’s report and its recommendations would be made public, in line with a similar commitment made by the Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu.

Fracking was deemed to pose a potential threat to South Africa’s participation in the construction of the world’s largest radio telescope the square kilometre array (SKA).
 

The report recommended a buffer zone be set up between the area earmarked for the SKA, and where fracking exploration will be permitted.

This buffer zone was sufficient, according to scientists, to ensure that neither operations would be negatively affected, he said.

Chabane gave assurances that environmental concerns, a chief reason for vocal objections to fracking in the Karoo, would be addressed through the environmental authorisations required by law before exploration began.

Fracking uses a mixture of sand, chemicals and vast quantities of water to release the gas trapped underground. Critics fear that the process will contaminate water supplies in an already dry area and damage air quality.

The department of mineral resources is expected to provide a detailed briefing on the issue early next week.

A number of gas and oil companies, including Shell, Falcon Gas and Oil and Sasol had applied for prospecting rights over areas of the Karoo when the department of mineral resources instituted the moratorium last year.

The Cabinet mandated Shabangu to begin a process of public consultations with interested and affected parties to provide further details, following the cancelling of the moratorium.

Gas is seen by many, notably the country’s National Planning Commission, as a means to bridge South Africa’s electricity supply shortages.

It can fuel power plants that are faster to build and bring online than large baseload power stations, such as nuclear power plants or mega coal fired operations, such as Eskom’s new Medupi and Kusile stations, currently under construction. A secure domestic supply of gas would also ensure a cheaper, more reliable fuel source.

During its lekgotla, the Cabinet also endorsed the National Development Plan written up by the NPC and adopted by Parliament last month.

The NDP strongly cautions against plans to expand South Africa’s nuclear power base, without a more thorough cost benefit analysis.

The department of energy’s 20-year plan for electricity, known as the integrated resource plan, makes allowance for the addition of 9600MW of nuclear generated power.

Chabane said that with the adoption of the NDP government would have to now begin to “readjust” its work to align with the NDP. This included he noted the readjustment of government departments’ sectoral plans, such as the energy department and its integrated resource plan.

South Africa has lifted a moratorium on shale gas exploration in the semi-arid Karoo region, where the extraction technique of “fracking” might be used to tap into some of the world’s potentially largest stocks of the energy source.

Collins Chabane, a minister in the President’s office, said on Friday the Cabinet had decided to lift a moratorium, imposed in April last year, after a study eased safety concerns related to the controversial method.

“When (the results of the study) … came back, they recommended that it was clearly safe for us to have that programme of exploration of shale gas,” Chabane told reporters.

According to an initial study commissioned by the US energy information administration, South Africa has 485 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas resources, most of which are located in the vast Karoo Basin.

The reserves, which would rank as the fifth largest among 32 countries included in the study, could be a long-term solution for the energy problems of Africa’s largest economy, which relies on coal to produce 85% of its electricity.

A revocation of the moratorium could benefit Royal Dutch Shell, Falcon Oil Gas, Sunset Energy and Anglo American, the Eurasia political risk consultancy said earlier this year, adding the move could be “a game changer” for South Africa’s economy.

Oil major Shell said last year it hoped to invest $200 million to explore for shale gas in the Karoo. Petrochemicals group Sasol in November put its shale gas exploration plans on hold but said it would watch further developments.

DEVASTATING IMPACT

South Africa last year imposed a fracking moratorium on oil and gas exploration licences in the Karoo region, to give time to study the potential gains and examine the concerns of environmentalists who say the process would ruin the area.

Ferrial Adam, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said the decision could start a process that could have a devastating impact for the region.

“At the end of the day it is still fracking. They are going to use a lot of water with a enormous amounts of chemicals in them in an area that is water scarce,” she said.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves pressurised water, chemicals and sand being pumped underground to release gas trapped in rock formations. It has been opposed by landowners and environmentalists who say the process can pollute water supplies.

However it has been increasingly taken up in the United States, releasing huge quantities of natural gas and setting an example that other countries with shale gas reserves are keen to follow.

Jonathan Deal, chairman of anti-fracking Treasure the Karoo Action Group, said the decision was “hasty” and “ill-informed”.

“If any exploration licenses are issued in future, we will appeal and naturally resort to litigation should our appeals fail,” he told Reuters.

“The only way to defeat this technology permanently is to get a ruling in the country’s highest court against fracking on environmental grounds.”

16-12-1838

“When (the results of the study) … came back, they recommended that it was clearly safe for us to have that programme of exploration of shale gas,” Chabane told reporters.

Should read… “When we (the greedy anc ba$tard$)… realised how much money we could make from back-handers and bribes, it became clearly advantageous for our own personal fortunes to have that programme of EXPLOITATION through shale gas” Chabane thought, while telling reporters.
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2012-09-07 13:01

Jan Willem Egginck of Shell has urged responsible fracking in the Karoo. (Shell)

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Duncan Alfreds, News24

Cape Town – With the Cabinet’s lifting of a moratorium on fracking in the Karoo on Friday, companies should act responsibly and ensure that the environment is protected, an oil and gas firm has insisted.

Royal Dutch Shell is one of the companies that have applied for shale gas exploration rights in the Karoo in the hopes of exploring gas reserves.

“The risk of ground water contamination; I always split it: There are risks from the top, that is you drop a barrel of diesel on the ground. It may filter to the water; obviously we will avoid it as best as we can; we’re a high standard operator,” Jan Willem Egginck, Upstream (Exploration) Shell South Africa told News24.

“The risk from contamination from deeper down are: You have the risk from the chemicals, and the risk of that happening as far as I know is actually very close to zero or zero because it has not been seen in the world yet,” said Egginck.

Environmentalists have condemned fracking because of fears that it will pollute ground water and in an area like the Karoo, water scarcity is more acute than in urban centres.

Risk

A University of the Free State professor said that companies should be careful about water pollution with regard to fracking.

“This is serious stuff. There will be trouble, and Shell and the other companies involved must take note,” said Professor Gerrit van Tonder.

In Tioga county in the US state of New York, fracking was blamed for methane water pollution but investigators found that the wells drilled for shale gas were too close to the water wells at 370m, rather than the typical 2km in depth where shale gas is found.

Shell said that the risk was minimal and that the said it was committed to open discussion about the environment related to the effect of fracking.

Egginck said that companies should plan for all eventualities.

“I cannot rule out that an incident will not occur because I don’t think we should. We should be honest: This is an industry where incidents may occur. I always say good operators like Shell have a plan in case an incident happens; bad operators have no plan: They run into a problem and then they don’t know what to do.”

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Cape Town – Conservation organisation World Wide Fund for Nature in SA (WWF-SA) is “deeply disappointed” by Cabinet’s decision to lift a moratorium on applications to explore, or frack, for shale gas in the Karoo.

The moratorium should have stayed in place until all the environmental concerns were sorted out, WWF-SA Living Planet Unit head Saliem Fakir said in a statement on Friday.

“We maintain our scepticism on the issue of fracking, and are of the view that the moratorium should have remained in place so that environmental externalities, such as the water and carbon footprint associated with shale gas exploration, could be properly interrogated,” he said.

WWF-SA was also concerned about “the lack of transparency and democratic process involved in Cabinet’s decision”, and called on Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu to release the report on which the decision was based.

Earlier, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane told a post-Cabinet media briefing that the decision was based on recommendations contained in the report on shale gas exploration prepared by the technical task team that was appointed last year.

This was after the department of mineral resources imposed a moratorium on applications for exploration for shale gas – using the fracking method – in the Karoo, amid concerns of possible environmental impact.

“Cabinet endorsed recommendations of the report on the lifting of the afore-stated moratorium,” Chabane said.

Shabangu would release the report “at the appropriate time”, he said.

WWF-SA said the decision to grant exploration licences for a process that was “banned or heavily restricted in at least 155 instances globally”, required much more transparent and careful investigation than it had received.

“The shale gas issue has been handled in an appalling manner. That the task team’s brief and findings have still not been disclosed is extremely disconcerting.”

The lifting of the moratorium on fracking placed some of South Africa’s sensitive ecological systems under serious threat.

“WWF is not convinced that adequate investigation has been made into the environmental footprint of shale-gas mining, a task that should have been allocated to an independent scientific panel, including international experts.

“Even if environmental safeguards were to exist on paper, there is no certainty that companies awarded rights to explore will be enforced (monitored) adequately to ensure that they are complying and making the necessary provisions to deal with environmental damage and rehabilitation,” Fakir said.

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THE Karas Regional Council’s plan to revive ostrich farming in the South appears to have fallen flat.

The sector collapsed in 2003 when most of the farmers were facing extreme hardship due to the high cost of fodder.

Agribank funding totalling N$21,5 million to 49 emerging commercial farmers and Domestic Ostrich Production of Mariental in June 2004 breathed new life into the industry. Government then acted as a guarantor for the AgriBank funding.

But the industry collapsed in 2006 after Agribank had withdrawn the funding, saying that the industry was neither profitable nor sustainable and would remain reliant on subsidies.

The Karas Regional Council, in partnership with Klein Karoo international company which is based in Oudtshoorn, South Africa, started in August 2011 with efforts to revive the industry.

The revival plans included setting up an ostrich abattoir for the slaughtering of 25 000 birds annually, which would have generated about N$75 million to N$150 million a year.

The council’s task was to organise the ostrich farmers and to help them raise funds to buy ostrich chicks from Klein Karoo.

However, a year has passed and it seems that the revival plan has failed.

Karas governor Bernadus Swartbooi, who initiated the revival plan, blamed the South African partner’s reluctance to go into a 50/50 partnership with the Namibians.

“They [Klein Karoo] chickened out when we demanded a 50/50 partnership. They behave as if we’re the only ones in need and wanted to overlook the mutual benefits,” Swartbooi charged.

For his part, Klein Karoo managing director Johan Stumpf cited farmers’ lack of interest.

“It seems no farmer has decided to go ahead. We’re the second line in the chain, and since we’re only processors we need to have farmers to invest in the industry,” said Stumpf.

Stumpf emphasised that his company is still eager to invest in ostrich farming in the South.

According to Stumpf, the last communication between him and the Karas Regional Council was last year December.

Peninsula Energy (ASX: PEN) has intersected high grade eU3O8 and Mo at the highly prospective Site 45, which forms part of the Karoo Projects in South Africa from exploration drilling.

The Karoo Basin is a known uranium and Mo mineralised province and is host to several historically defined ore bodies.

The High grade drill results confirm historically mineralised zone at Site 45, with Mo mineralisation in association with uranium confirmed.

Uranium highlights include; 9.4 ft @ 1,054ppm eU3O8 from 45.3ft; 3.1 ft @ 2,351ppm eU3O8 from 134.8ft; and 4.3 ft @ 1,620ppm eU3O8 from 77.9ft.

Mo intercepts were; 1.3ft @ 2,073ppm Mo from 60ft; and 2.6ft @ 1,226 ppm Mo from 81.2ft.

Importantly – Peninsula expects to complete an initial JORC Resource for the Karoo Projects before December 2012.

Gus Simpson, executive chairman, commented on the positive news: “The drilling program has confirmed the historic uranium mineralisation reported at Site 45 and these latest results confirm significant Mo mineralisation in association with uranium.”

Drilling program at Site 45

The initial drilling program at Site 45 was been designed to confirm the historic mineralisation defined by the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company (JCI) during the 1970’s.

Since Peninsula’s the previous announcement on 20 June 2012, the company has completed a further 66 drill holes at Site 45 for a total of 16,975 feet.

To date Peninsula has completed a total of 123 reverse circulation holes and 6 diamond holes for a total of 32,182 feet at Site 45, with a total of 105 holes intersecting mineralisation 100ppm and 43 holes reported multiple intersections of stacked uranium.

A total of 28 holes reported grades in excess of 1,000ppm eU3O8.

Uranium at Site 45 is developed in sandstones that belong to the Davidskolk Formation. Two south-southwest trending mineralised sandstone horizons, DK2 and DK3, are being targeted with a third possible horizon currently being investigated.

Karoo Projects – Exploration Potential

In addition to the existing resource drilling, ten high ranking drill targets distributed across all six of Peninsula’s project areas have been prioritised from the 392 uranium occurrences generated by the 2008 helicopter-borne radiometric and magnetic surveys, site mapping and ground sampling.

Further targets have been identified following recent acquisition and review of exploration reports compiled by Union Carbide during the 1970s and early 1980s. Peninsula obtained these reports from the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation during the September 2010 quarter.

Preliminary geological studies have estimated a combined exploration potential in the Karoo of 30-60m tonnes @ 700 – 1,400ppm eU3O8 for 90 – 150mlbs eU3O8.

The company’s target is to delineate 30mlbs of eU3O8 (15-25m tonnes @ 700–1,400ppm eU3O8). The source of this material may include the historic mineral occurrences, their extensions and new exploration targets.

If this target is achieved a conceptual study has suggested that this quantity of uranium would support the development of a central processing facility near Site 29.

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A series of poems by Thomas Hardy, grieving after the death of his first, estranged wife, inspired Athol Fugard’s latest play, The Blue Iris, now receiving its U.S. premiere at Hollywood’s Fountain Theatre, directed by Stephen Sachs.

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Athol Fugard, the internationally renowned Causasian South African dramatist who writes in English, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his early writing career dedicated to battling his nation’s apartheid policies (in plays such as Blood Knot, 1961; and Master Harold and the Boys, 1982). Fugard was as brave as a playwright could be, joining the ranks of Chile’s Ariel Dorfman and Czechoslovakia’s Václav Havel by risking prison for writing works that looked askance at the policies of their authoritarian governments. It was a baton they passed along to the likes of Russian punk band Pussy Riot.

But when Nelson Mandela was released in 1990 after 27 years in South African prisons, and in the nation’s first multiracial elections became the nation’s first black president, the purpose of aging white liberals such as Fugard became ever more nuanced and difficult to define. After all, South Africa’s brave new future also contained a raging AIDS epidemic, and the continuation of unspeakable poverty, revenge and violence.

That transition is what Fugard has been writing about since 1994, in a series of plays set in his beloved Karoo, among them Valley Song (1996), Sorrows and Rejoicings (2001), Victory (2007) and his latest, The Blue Iris.

Invariably, they concern an aging white man and young “colored” (the South African term for mixed-race) woman. In Valley Song, presented here at the Mark Taper Forum, the young woman, Veronica, needed to come of age, to escape the confines of the Karoo for a faster life in the city. She was an innocent, and a symbol of the future.

Sorrows and Rejoicings (also premiered here at the Taper) concerned a white, male poet from South Africa who went into exile in London. When he returned to the Karoo, he was dying. There he met the young colored woman he left behind, Rebecca. She answered his abandonment of her by burning his early poems. The essence of Fugard’s anxiety was spoken in a single line from that play:

“For your soul’s sake, Rebecca, I hope you know that what you did was terribly wrong. What you turned to ash and smoke out there in the veldt was evidence of a man’s love, for his country, for his people — for you! Don’t reject it. … Rejoice in it! Because if you think you and your New South Africa don’t need it, you are making a terrible mistake.”

In Victory, which received its U.S. premiere at the Fountain Theatre, also directed by Sachs, the aging white man (Morlan Higgins) found himself being robbed and held hostage by the young colored woman (born on the day Mandela was released from prison, and consequently named Vickie in honor of this victory) and her boyfriend. The old man was Vickie’s educator and mentor. Her petty criminal alliance was a representation of how the innocence of Veronica and the hope for the future in Valley Song had corroded in Fugard’s eyes.

Fugard’s plays have been getting ever more despondent, and The Blue Iris contains his most austere view to date. Morlan Higgins returns as Robert Hannay, eking out an existence in the Karoo near the charred remains of a house where the colored woman, Rieta (Julanne Chidi Hill), once grew up and worked as a housekeeper. Robert still grieves for his wife, Sally (Jacqueline Schultz, appearing as a phantom), who died of a heart attack shortly after a lightning strike that burned their home. (Jeff McLaughlin’s set depicts blackened beams and detached doors amidst piles of detritus.)

Sally begged Robert not to leave the night of that storm, but he was determined to buy a new breeding ram, and so now he lives with the agony of his decision on that night of decimation. Rieta stands by him, for reasons unveiled in the play. She endures his conjurings of Sally.

Some verses of one poem by Hardy, “The Voice,” embody Robert’s state of mind:

“Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

“Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Traveling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?”

Sally, a painter by avocation, floats through the play on the day Rieta discovers Sally’s only painting that was untouched by the fire. It’s a botanical portrait of a blue iris, which for Robert brings back the memory of when Sally found the flower on the floor of the drought-blasted veldt — a single symbol of hope in a withered landscape otherwise punctuated by the death of plants and sheep.

That particular flower, however, has poison within its beauty, enough poison to “bring down an ox,” which is why the local farmers so loath it. That’s what Sally was trying to capture. What looks pretty contains toxins. And there you have the parable for the contamination of a hope-filled future.

The department of Cultural Affairs and Sport in the province is in tune with dancers from the West Coast and Central Karoo in the African Hip Hop Indaba from today until tomorrow.

The department has partnered with the organisation Heal the World Project to invest in the youth by hosting a variety of dance workshops in these regions.

The workshops created awareness on the history and various dance styles of Hip Hop and to express the unique culture through the genre.

Two competitions took place in Saldanha Bay and Beaufort West earlier this month where the best dance crews and dancers from the workshops were selected and will compete in the Indaba this year.

The dancers from Central Karoo will compete for the first time in this year’s event. Versatile (group winners), Colin Duimpies (popping) and Christiaan Adams (krump) will line up against the very best dancers from around the Western Cape and South Africa. The group winners from Saldanha Bay, TK Explosives as well as Rupert Makka, Chadwin Cook and Bronwin Papier (all Afrikaans rappers) will represent the West Coast.

Adrian Kearns at the Arts and Culture directorate said it was evident that the workshops had made a visible impact on these dancers and on their communities. “The workshops were well attended and these dancers are just grateful to compete in the Indaba.”

It has created the perfect platform for the dancers and artists to showcase their talent together in the biggest event on the South African hip hop calendar. – 701198

 

An announcement is imminent. Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu has said that the report by a task team investigating the controversial process will be made public.
This is expected next week following a Cabinet lekgotla.

The lifting of the moratorium is likely to see the beginning of an intensive exploratory phase to determine the extent of South Africa’s shale-gas resources. But it is also likely to lead to increased pressure to ensure that the highest environmental standards are applied.

Both critics and supporters of fracking agree that it could take more than a decade to bring fracked gas on stream and develop the infrastructure to support a large gas sector.

Shell South Africa’s upstream manager, Jan Willem Eggink, anticipates the lifting of the moratorium, which will allow the company to determine the size of the reserves and whether they are commercially viable. Shell is one of several companies that applied for exploration rights before the moratorium was put in place.

Eggink said Shell would not be issued with a licence to frack immediately and it did not mean rigs would spring up suddenly all over the Karoo. After the regulator, the Petroleum Agency of South Africa, has issued a licence, an environmental impact assessment will have to be finalised, which could take up to two years. Only then could exploration begin.

Environmental concerns about water contamination and air pollution persist. Earlier this year, United States media reported on findings of the country’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ­indicating high levels of ­methane associated with fracking. The gas is more harmful than carbon ­dioxide (CO2) and escapes during drilling, which counters the belief that fracked gas comes with low emissions.

Eggink is aware of the concerns about fugitive emissions, particularly methane, as well as reports of groundwater contamination.

Good operators
“There are a lot of things that Shell can do to prevent this,” he said. Methane can become trapped in the drilling mud, which then escapes to the surface, where it is released. But it can be captured and burned to transform the gas into CO2. Although this was not ideal, it would be much better than releasing methane into the atmosphere, Eggink said. Ideally, as much as possible would be captured and marketed.

The risk of chemicals contaminating water was close to zero, he said, given the depth at which Shell would be drilling. Wells in the Karoo will  go down two or three kilometres, far deeper than the wells in which water contamination may occur.

But Eggink is adamant that “good” operators have plans in place to prevent these kinds of problems.

He said Shell had shared its operating principles with the petroleum agency, which he hoped it would use as a basis for minimum standards for the industry. How to drill wells and manage water properly were chief among them.

“We are concerned about operators not operating at high standards. In the end, an incident in the industry will hurt us,” he said.

It is also important that a regulatory regime and capable regulator are in place to police the industry.

But, Eggink said, a full suite of regulations was not necessary immediately – they could be developed over time.

Fracking activities
The exploration phase can take up to nine years before development begins and it will be more than a decade before gas is brought to market.

Eggink said the provisions of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act were sufficient to govern fracking activities.

“What the government has to look at is whether the legislation they have for exploration and production operations is tight enough for the kind of operations we propose.

“They have to obviously focus on the environmental aspects of the operations that we will carry out and the environmental risks associated with it.”

These elements are also likely to fall under the ambit of other legislation, such as the National Environ­mental Management Act.  

Eggink said that there was much to do to establish local infrastructure, although there is sufficient time to do it and building the supporting surface gas industry will create many jobs.

“There is a limited surface industry available, but this forces South Africa to establish these jobs. However, it will take time to get all these competencies built,” he said.

Although it will take time to develop shale gas, liquid natural gas imports should be brought into the energy mix. This could see the introduction of the necessary infrastructure in a modular fashion, “seeding the market with gas”, Eggink said.

Fighting the green fight
Treasure the Karoo Action Group chairperson Jonathan Deal holds out little hope that the moratorium will remain in place. “We would be unrealistic to expect anything other than the lifting of the ban,” he said.

“But while we still have breath left in us we will do everything possible to ensure that fracking does not go ahead under the current circumstances.”

The anti-fracking group has written to Cabinet requesting it to vote against opening South Africa up to the industry.

The use of chemicals, sand and vast amounts of water to fracture the rocks and release the gas are deemed a threat to scarce groundwater in the arid Karoo, according to critics. It threatens the sensitive regional environment, including its air quality, and the livelihoods of farmers, farmworkers and tourism-focused towns in the region.

Its proponents argue that, apart from greater energy security and creating employment, it could be a less carbon-intensive way to generate power and would be quicker and cheaper than commissioning large coal or nuclear power plants.

But Gerrit van Tonder, a professor at the University of the Free State’s Institute for Groundwater Studies, recently raised further issues about groundwater contamination that were widely publicised in the media.

He said the upward migration of deep water could be hastened by fracked wells, which could become the chief pathway for the water. Given that some fracking fluid remained underground after the process is complete, this could lead to the contamination of groundwater.

Although his views were criticised in the media because they were based on a research paper that has not yet been published or peer reviewed, he said this week that he was convinced his concerns were well founded.

Another problem will be the build-up of pressure in abandoned wells and the deterioration of the cement and steel casings that line fracking wells.

Van Tonder said a far better understanding of the process and its potential impact was needed before fracking went ahead.

Economic opportunity
Business consultancy Econometrix stated in a report in January that according to two successful scenarios, hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created by the shale-gas industry in the Karoo.

A find of 20-trillion cubic feet of gas could create about 290 000 jobs and add about R80-billion to the economy. A find of 50-trillion cubic feet could create 700000 jobs and contribute R200-billion.

But the Worldwide Fund for Nature’s Saliem Fakir has criticised the study and said that, until economically viable reserve estimates were proved, the numbers were simply conjecture.

He said shale gas would not come on stream quickly enough to fill the gap in South Africa’s energy needs. He also said exports were likely to strengthen the rand, which could hurt the country’s other exports.  

The petroleum agency did not respond to requests for comment and the department of mineral resources would not comment until the task team’s report is released.