graaff reinet

Top economist Twine added that this had to happen soon if the country hoped to meet its future energy needs and boost its coffers. If the amount of shale gas – lying about 4000 to 5000 metres below the Karoo surface – was confirmed, it could provide the equivalent of 400 years’ worth of energy consumption in South Africa.

First discovered by Soekor in 1967, the Karoo shale gas was currently only a “suspected resource” of about 485 trillion cubic feet. “This is big stuff in terms of contribution to GDP [and] in terms of employment potential,” Twine said. “Even if the gas finds turn out to be a lot smaller than the estimate […] we are talking about a mighty big fish.” According to Independent Online, Econometrix was commissioned to produce a report on the macroeconomics of the project. “To get the production rolling by the early part of the 2020s, we have got to start exploring soon,” Twine said, adding that the project could eventually lead to the creation of up to 700,000 jobs by 2035, after the initial proposed nine-year exploration period.

Read the full article on www.iol.co.za.

20 March 2012
Last updated at 06:34 ET

By Kate Forbes
BBC News, Johannesburg

Some fear that fracking would destroy the Karoo’s natural beauty

South Africa’s Karoo region is a pristine wilderness of red hills and wildflowers. It is beautiful, desperately poor and is now the new frontline in the global battle over a hugely controversial drilling practice called “fracking”.

The semi-desert area of about 400,000 sq km in the west of the country is home to what could be one of the largest deposits of shale gas in the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) – possibly enough to supply the country with gas for the next 400 years.

But the country is not sure whether to allow the gas to be extracted by fracking.

Fracking supporters say it is the future of energy; detractors that it is an environmental disaster – and the resource-rich country does not have laws in place to properly regulate what is literally an “earth-shattering” type of exploration, which can pollute water sources.

Both sides are furiously lobbying the government – and two major reports have just been published to back up their arguments.

‘Mighty big fish’

South African think-tank Econometrix says fracking would give what is desperately needed in the Karoo: Jobs and development.

The Karoo is popular with tourists because of its unspoilt landscapes – but the mostly black population battles with high unemployment and what services there are in the area are basic.

Continue reading the main story

A guide to fracking

• Fracking is a method that energy companies use to get shale gas out of shallow deposits in the ground.
• It uses a mix of water and chemicals at very high pressure to split rock.
• The gas can then escape into “wells” where it can be drawn out for use in homes and power stations.

• QA: What is fracking?

Preserving the status quo, Econometrix says, will do nothing for local communities – while, it argues, the trickledown effect of cheaper energy supply to business will help the local economy to grow and provide jobs.

“This is big stuff in terms of contribution to GDP [gross domestic product], in terms of employment potential,” author of the report, Tony Twine, said before his death earlier this month.

“Even if the gas finds turn out to be a lot smaller than the estimate, we are talking about a mighty big fish,” he said.

The amount of gas under the Karoo could provide 400 years worth of energy to South Africa, he said.

‘Wildly inflated’

The Econometrix study was funded by Royal Dutch Shell, the energy company that wants to explore for gas in the region.

Washington-based group, Food and Water Watch, says the link between fracking and local jobs is yet to be proven.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Fracking has to be explained to people, particularly in poor or rural communities without internet access and only basic education”

End Quote
Muna Lakhani
Earthlife Africa

“The US experience has shown that fracking helps oil and gas companies, not communities,” says its new report Fracking: The New Global Water Crisis.

“It is a favorite industry talking point but when you examine the fancy economic models and look at the actual number of jobs created, their claims are wildly inflated,” the report says.

The group which campaigns for safe and clean water and food, says that one industry study of fracking exaggerated projected job creation by 900%.

It also says that the damage to the environment and human health will be irreversible – citing examples in the US, where shale gas exploration has grown substantially in the past decade.

Last year in the US town of Wyoming, residents were told by the environmental protection agency not to drink the water because chemicals had leached into it as a result of fracking.

While in Texas, near the Barnett shale wells, environmental officers found the levels of benzene – which can cause cancer – were five times higher than allowed limits.

Ask the people?

The South African government has a dilemma on its hands.

The Karoo is an area that desperately needs economic development, and so could benefit from any jobs created by drilling for shale gas in the area, even if it is not the hundreds promised.

Its national development plan has committed the country to moving away from coal to cleaner fuels – and this could include shale gas.

But the same plan also promises clean drinking water for all – and the US experience shows that fracking could cause water pollution.

Another problem, says Muna Lakhani of South African environmental group Earthlife Africa, is that the local population has largely gone unheard.

Shell has asked residents to sit on advisory panels.

But Mr Lakhani says that “no-one has wanted to, or been able to, put enough resources in to properly canvas the views of communities.”

“Fracking has to be explained to people, particularly in poor or rural communities without internet access and only basic education,” he says.

The spokesman for the department of mineral resources told the BBC they are “still considering and finalising” their report and that their decision will come soon.

The African National Congress government is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The problem is, inside that rock there might be gas.

INLSA

Protesters organised by Earthlife Africa Cape Town marched in Green Point yesterday to call for a ban on fracking in South Africa. Photo: Courtney Africa

Leila Samodien

KAROO-BORN Thuli January-Tshofela was excited when she first heard that “big companies” were to start fracking near her home town.

She’d moved to Cape Town to find work and believed this would be her opportunity to return to the tiny Karoo town of Pearston.

“There’s nothing there,” she said.

“Pearston is a small town. There’s no factories or shops for people to work in.”

Like many others in her town, January-Tshofela moved to Cape Town 11 years ago in the hope of securing a viable job. She now lives in Khayelitsha with her husband and two children, working as a volunteer cleaning up wetlands.

“Everyone was excited when we heard Shell was going to a farm near Pearston to look for gas, because there would be jobs for us. At first I was very excited. I thought I could go home,” she said. But after attending an Earthlife Africa Cape Town workshop in Makhaza on fracking – a means of extracting gas from the earth – January-Tshofela now lives in fear that it will be allowed in the Karoo.

“I’m very afraid and worried for my town because I know it’s very small,” she said.

“Fracking will make the water bad and I’m scared my people will get sick.”

January-Tshofela was one of some 150 people, many of them from Makhaza, who took part in a protest in Green Point against fracking yesterday.

They gathered in Green Point Park, brandishing posters that read: “Our health vs corporate wealth,” “There is no planet B,” and “Renewables Now!”.

They then marched through the park and across the promenade.

Muna Lakhani, branch co-ordinator of Earthlife Africa Cape Town, which organised the protest, said poor people and farmworkers would be the most affected by fracking, yet many of them were uneducated about what fracking was and what its impact would be.

“This get-together is to help break that barrier between poor and middle class people.

“We’re bringing poor people into traditionally white areas to show that we all stand together in the fight against fracking,” said Lakhani.

In addressing the crowd, Earthlife Africa volunteer Marina Louw described fracking as “the civil rights issue of our time”.

She said that while fracking did create jobs, this was a short-term solution to job creation, and the cost to the environment was “just too big”.

“The impact on our environment will be devastating. We want to see our government investing in renewables and sustainable energy,” said Louw.

leila.samodien@inl.co.za

.

INSPIRING: Shakespeares place of birth, Stratford-upon-Avon.

SA actor Thami Mbongo has won awards for his roles on stage, and has also acted on television. He is best known for his role as Moses Gumede in the television drama series Shooting Stars.

A Brett Goldin Bursary Award recipient, he is currently artistic director of the Zabalaza Theatre Festival at the Baxter. His acting career has led to numerous trips abroad. He shares some of these experiences:

How widely have you travelled?

I have been most lucky to have travelled to several cities in the UK and also in the US through my work as an actor. My first trip was to the UK when I went to Stratford-upon-Avon as a 2008 Brett Goldin Bursary Award winner, and then again in 2009 as one of the cast members in the Baxter Theatre Centre and Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest.

We toured six cities around the UK with the production, including Richmond, Leeds, Bath, Nottingham and Sheffield. I also visited London with Lara Foot’s multiple award-winning Karoo Moose at the Tricycle Theatre. In the US I went to Pittsburg for their well-known and popular Children’s Festival.

Where was your favourite holiday or time spent abroad?

SCHOLAR OF THEATRE: The worlds a stage for actor Thami Mbongo.

.

Definitely Stratford-upon-Avon. After all, as an actor, spending a whole month in the place where William Shakespeare was born was really inspiring. It is a small and beautiful town, very gentle and very popular with local and international tourists. I would stand outside The Courtyard Theatre – one of the RSC’s venues, just across from the Avon River, and listen to the sounds of the swans, geese and nature – it was so inspiring. It was also a great honour to meet some of great stage and theatre legends like Cicely Berry, John Barton, Patrick Stewart, David Tennant. It is amazing to be up close and personal with these world-famous actors and teachers.

Your worst experience on a holiday?

My trip coming back from the US, without a doubt. I was supposed to fly from New York City to Heathrow Airport and had to wait for 16 hours for the flight back to Cape Town. By then I had no money and my per diem (daily allowance) was depleted because I spent so much money on connecting flights. What with the rand/dollar thing going on, I had no money left, so I had to call my agent for assistance. Emma Ress is the best. She transferred money into my account so that I could finally get home.

What do you avoid on holiday?

Well, I have a confession to make. My sense of direction is non-existent so I do tend to get lost easily in new places and especially in a foreign country. So I avoid going out on my own. I always ensure that I am with people all the time.

Your favourite restaurant and food during your travels?

I am a very simple person. I love cheese in the morning and during the course of the day. For supper, it’s meat.

So I generally go to places where I know that I am going to be able to order those two food types. I am not terribly adventurous – I eat what I know I love.

Your favourite place for sundowners?

I no longer drink alcohol – not even socially. But when I used to drink, I used to make sure that I went to any place with an SA vibe, whether locally or abroad. I always do research before going to a new city – I seek out venues which have an SA feel or connection.

I also visit many theatres so in the past I would enjoy a drink at the different theatres.

Any travel tips?

Avoid getting involved in arguments, always have a small map with you.

If you want to party, make sure it’s close to where you are staying, and be certain that it’s in a safe area and with reliable company.

Always be friendly and be willing to learn from others. And never forget the reason you are there in the first place. – Weekend Argus

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KOCHVILLE TWP. – A museum in a remote village in South Africa’s arid Karoo, where even in the 1970s Afrikaners — South Africans of European descent — didn’t have running water and electricity, showcases the work of a woman considered an outcast in her day.

And Friday, March 23, Saginaw Valley State University’s theater department tells the reclusive Miss Helen’s story, one that has caught the attention of Broadway in recent months through Athol Fugard’s “The Road to Mecca.”

“Her husband passed away 15 years before the story takes place, in August of 1974, and she started making art, filling her yard with statues and her home with broken glass and mirrors that reflected the candlelight at night,” said director Tommy Wedge, an adjunct professor at SVSU as he works on his masters in fine arts degree from the University of South Dakota.

Apartheid was in full swing, though it’s not specifically mentioned in Fugard’s work, Wedge said. But the attitudes prevail, almost invisible to some extent, Wedge said, because they’re simply accepted as the way things are, as recently seen in “The Help” as well.

“They are so oblivious to how discriminatory it is, almost as if they’re color-blind,” he said. “It’s not as if Miss Helen’s crusading against it but she’s not really propagating it either. Nothing here is black-and-white; you find out in the course of the play that there is no good or evil.”

And Wedge has further distanced himself from making his production a period piece on South African politics by casting Ashton Blue, an African-American student, as the conservative Rev. Marius Blyeveld. As the play unfolds, Blyeveld tries to move Miss Helen (Kiri Brasseur) to a home for the elderly while school teacher Elsa Barlow (Mykaela Hopps), her only friend, fights to keep her at home.

“When I first read the play, I honed in on apartheid,” Wedge admitted. “But in auditions, I told the students that the roles would go to the most qualified, and that was Ashton.

“We made some slight changes to the script, and delved into the relationships Miss Helen made, the two people outside of a neighbor and her husband who she considered friends.”

The story is one that already resonates with people — Wedge said he heard of a similar woman in Midland who isolated herself with her art — and opens itself to a study of light and darkness as Elsa’s friendship becomes as important to her as her art.

“She was really cut off from everyone,” Brasseur said. “Miss Helen was a widow who, instead of becoming one of the village ladies, was an outcast. I think a lot of that has to do with expectations; even today, some people regard older women who are single and don’t do the expected as strange.”

Brasseur began her research by viewing photos of Martins’ art work – “It’s really, really cool,” she said – and then trying to step in her shoes.

“Getting into this character is so different,” she said. “I’m enjoying this immeasurably more than anything I’ve done before. Think about it, only three people really visited Miss Helen in 15 years. If she didn’t have her art, she had nothing.”

And both Wedge and Brasseur saw the irony of turning Miss Helen’s humble Owl House into a “mecca” for art lovers once the play became popular. As Wedge says in his director’s notes, the community that scorned her now thrives on the thousands who visit her home.

Performing in the round in SVSU’s Black Box Theatre opens still more ways to illuminate Fugard’s work, Wedge said. Scenic designer Jerry Dennis has suspended more than 100 empty bottles at different heights, and there’s an owl, too, as a nod to her concrete-and-wire sculptures.

“It’s almost as if there are two different galleries,” Wedge said. “In the round, you can also see how the whole world lights up, the bottles and light creating that illusion.

“We chose to do it in the round, too, so that the audience could see itself in the course of the play, always surrounded by judging eyes.”

The play ends on a hopeful note, Wedge said, though Miss Helen’s story doesn’t. She committed suicide in 1976.

“Through theater, I try my best to educate audiences as well,” Wedge said. “This shows well how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.”

“The Road to Mecca,” intended for mature audiences, begins at 7:30 p.m. March 23 in the Black Box Theatre at SVSU, 7400 Bay in Kochville Township. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $7 for students and seniors 60 and older. Call the box office at 989-964-4261 for ticket availability.

Here is a walking tour of the Owl House’s gardens in Karoo:

Weather

WARNINGS: 1. Extremely uncomfortable, humid conditions are possible in the north-eastern parts of Kwazulu-Natal, the West Coast District and the Little Karoo.
2. A high veld fire danger rating is expected in the West Coast District.

19 March 2012
| Sapa

GAUTENG

Partly cloudy and warm with isolated showers and thundershowers.

Expected UVB index: Dangerous.

MPUMALANGA

Morning and evening cloudy areas in the east with fog patches on the high ground, otherwise partly cloudy and warm with isolated thundershowers. It will be hot in places in the lowveld.

LIMPOPO

Morning and evening cloudy areas in the east with fog patches on the escarpment, otherwise partly cloudy and warm with isolated thundershowers. It will be hot in places in the lowveld and western bushveld.

NORTH WEST

Fine and warm to hot but partly cloudy in the east.

FREE STATE

Fine and warm but partly cloudy in the east at first.

NORTHERN CAPE

Fine and warm to hot, becoming partly cloudy in the west. The wind along the coast will be moderate south-easterly.

WESTERN CAPE

Partly cloudy and warm to hot, but partly cloudy along the south coast at first. The wind along the coast will be moderate easterly to south-easterly.

Expected UVB index: Dangerous.

EASTERN CAPE

Partly cloudy and warm. The wind along the coast will be moderate easterly to north-easterly.

KWAZULU-NATAL

Morning fog patches in the interior, otherwise fine and warm becoming partly cloudy with isolated thundershowers in the extreme west. The wind along the coast will be moderate south-westerly, becoming easterly to south-easterly.

Expected UVB index: Dangerous.

NAMIBIA

Partly cloudy in the north-east, otherwise fine and warm to hot but very hot in places along the escarpment. It will be cool along the coast with a moderate south-easterly.

BOTSWANA

Partly cloudy to warm and hot with isolated thundershowers in the extreme north and east.

LESOTHO

Fine and cool becoming partly cloudywith isolated thundershowers in the east.

SWAZILAND

Cloudy with light rain, becoming partly cloudy and warm.

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SKA South Africa

Artists impression of the MeerKAT array in the Karoo. There has been much debate over who will host the SKA telescope

Related Stories

• SA in race to host space telescope

A crucial meeting that could be the penultimate step in the decision-making process on where to build the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will take place on Monday.

This is when the board of directors of the SKA Organisation, the parent body of the R14.9 billion project, will discuss a confidential report and recommendation by the SKA Site Advisory Committee on where to build the telescope.

The committee’s report and site recommendation have already been endorsed by the SKA Siting Group (SSG), a six-member body set up specifically to confirm the committee’s investigation and recommendation were duly rigorous.

The board released the report under conditions of strict confidentiality to the two consortia bidding to host the project: SA with its eight African partners, and Australia and New Zealand.

But that confidentiality was broken, and last week the Australian media ran stories based on a leak saying the recommended site was Africa. This was subsequently “confirmed” by a source of the UK scientific journal Nature.

According to Associated Press, Science minister Chris Evans told the National Press Club (of Australia) last week that “we are still absolutely committed to winning the bid”.

“To be frank, I think the thing that works against us the most is the sympathy for doing more in Africa – the European view which says we ought to be doing more development in Africa and I think that is something that, at a political level, is quite strong.”

His comments seem to confirm the site advisory committee’s recommendation is in favour of Africa, and there’s concern Australia may use Monday’s meeting to launch an all-out attack on its findings and possibly seek to have the recommendation scrapped or sent back for re-evaluation.

But there appears to be no legal basis for such a step, because the decision-making process has been set out very precisely in the company’s Articles of Association, which were formally approved and adopted by all the members – including site bidders SA, Australia and New Zealand – on February 7. The SKA Organisation declined to give the Cape Argus a copy of the articles, but these were subsequently obtained from the British company register.

The articles indicate that the recommendation should go to the scheduled “general meeting” at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands on April 4, where a decision should be taken by the four “neutral” board members of the SKA Organisation – the UK, Netherlands, Italy and China. – Cape Argus

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2012-03-15 16:13

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

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SKA

Duncan Alfreds

Cape Town – South Africa has demonstrated the engineering of the Karoo Array Telescope has resulted in a capable instrument as the country makes the final push to host the Square Kilometre Telescope (SKA) in the Northern Cape province.

Known as the KAT-7, the seven dish array was able to detect radio emission from a nearby galaxy called NGC 3109, which is about 4.3 light years away from Earth, in the constellation Hydra.

Astronomers were able to detect the radio emission from the neutral hydrogen gas in the galaxy as well as the direction it is moving.

“These exciting results achieved by KAT-7 have given us confidence that we know how to build a cutting-edge radio telescope in Africa to answer some of the fundamental questions in radio astronomy”, said Dr Bernie Fanaroff, director of SKA South Africa.

SA and Australia are bidding to host the massive SKA, which will consist of more than 3 000 linked radio telescopes and the KAT-7 was built as an engineering test-bed for the project.

MeerKAT

Even if SA doesn’t win the right to host the SKA, the ministry of science and technology has committed to build the MeerKAT instrument which will consist of 64 dishes.

“MeerKAT gets built, whether we win the SKA or not. If we win the SKA, things will change and we will have to re-plan a bit, but what we did was to align MeerKAT pretty close to the mainstream SKA thinking so that we’ll be in a position to expand MeerKAT into an SKA Phase 1,” MeerKAT project manager Willem Esterhuyse told News24.

Neutral hydrogen is important for the astronomers to understand the distances of galaxies from Earth using the Doppler effect. Where galaxies are moving away from us, the frequency shifts down.

One of the first projects slated for the MeerKAT after its expected completion in 2016 will study neutral hydrogen in great detail.

“We want to go back to about half the age of the universe – about six to eight billion years – and we’ll be able to measure the gas from the most distant galaxies,” astronomer Dr Sarah Blyth told News24 in late 2011.

Blythe will, with Dr Andrew Baker of Rutgers University and Dr Benne Holwerda of the European Space Agency, lead a team of 56 to study the prevalence of neutral hydrogen in the universe. Their research hopes to explain the decline in star formation in galaxies.

“Observations of the neutral hydrogen content of galaxies also help to form a picture of how galaxies have evolved over cosmic time and show how our own galaxy, the spiral galaxy called the Milky Way, has developed,” Fanaroff said.

Recently a scientific review panel has recommended SA as a host country for the SKA, but the final decision is expected in April and the project is expected to cost about €1.5bn.

– Follow Duncan on Twitter
 

SA’s Square Kilometre Array (SKA SA) yesterday appealed to the communication watchdog to ensure the central Karoo was not forgotten in the digital terrestrial television (DTT) migration plan.

SKA SA is concerned that the digital terrestrial TV regulations provide for digital broadcast coverage for 95% of the country, and that the Northern Cape area of the Karoo, where the telescope is situated, may be excluded because of the low population density.

The move to digital was key to the telescope’s performance, SKA SA told the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) in its submission at hearings on draft regulations this week.

The site is protected by the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act of 2007, which in effect prohibits all activities that might adversely affect the operation of the radio telescope — including radio and analogue frequencies. The telescope will not be affected by digital frequencies.

SKA SA also asked Icasa for clarity on when the analogue system would be switched off, as the signal affects the telescope. The digital terrestrial TV regulations stipulate the digital signal will be switched on at the end of the 2012-13 financial year, but do not give a date for the analogue switch-off. SKA SA said it was required by the end of 2015.

SKA SA’s radio frequency interference and site characterisation manager, Adrian Tiplady, said after the hearing: “We want to ensure that the interests of the SKA are going to be prioritised and will be expedited.

“The protection regime we’ve established under the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act is aligned with the time scale for digital migration, and what we are ensuring is that those time scales do not change or slip.”

Meanwhile, MTN has urged the parties involved in broadcasting digital migration to fast-track the process so radio frequency spectrum can be released for the provision of telecoms services.

Digital migration is expected to free up the spectrum the mobile operators anxiously want to provide next-generation high-speed internet services.

MTN said: “Digital migration is foremost about the freeing up of the spectrum….

“In the interest of transparency and certainty, and to ensure an efficient, sustainable and competitive information and communications technology industry, the allocation of the digital dividend (spectrum freed up from the migration) should be clarified, and it should accommodate all industry stakeholders.”

MTN was also critical of proposals to use the universal service and access fund for broadcasting activities to subsidise set-top boxes, saying the communications minister had no legislative powers to use the fund in that manner.

The set-top boxes will be used to receive the digital signal.

MTN said the broadcasting digital migration policy mentioned that alternatives would be sought to provide subsidies, but only the universal service and access fund had been identified.

“MTN is not convinced that the minister has the legislative powers to pronounce that (the fund) should be used for the purposes of subsidising set-top boxes ,” the company said.

It said the money should be used for, among other things, improving broadband access to meet the Department of Communications’ target of 100% broadband connectivity by 2020.

inlsa

Econometrix Senior economist Tony Twine passes on.Photo by Leon Maluleke

Ethel Hazelhurst

Tony Twine, a well-loved and highly respected economist, died on Sunday after a heart attack and a short illness.

His unexpected death has left a large hole in the lives of friends and colleagues, as well as many others in the business community. Among those who paid tribute yesterday was Pravin Gordhan, the Finance Minister.

“Mr Twine made a valuable contribution to the development of policies in several government departments and was part of a team that drafted South Africa’s energy policies, Gordhan said.

“The National Treasury valued his insight on such issues as international ratings agencies, the automobile industry, petroleum markets and various aspects of litigation and competition law economics.

“As an eminent researcher and senior economist at Econometrix, his widely published opinions in international media helped to form positive views of South Africa by investors. Mr Twine contributed much to the post-apartheid economic debate and his input will be missed.”

A director of Econometrix at the time of his death, at the age of 57, Twine joined the consultancy in 1983. He started his career at Mobil Oil Southern Africa in 1976 and later worked at Datsun Nissan.

Among other things, Twine possessed the ability – awe inspiring in a blind man – to hold a room riveted with a PowerPoint presentation.

One measure of his achievement is the surprise expressed by many people on learning that he had been blind from his early 30s as a result of diabetes.

He was blessed with intellectual insights that more than compensated for his physical disabilities, as well as an “excellent” memory, according to his colleague Azar Jammine.

Jammine, who is Econometrix director and chief economist, said Twine was able to immediately absorb figures and other information read to him. And he said Twine’s achievements were an inspiration to people with physical disabilities.

Twine specialised in the motor industry and energy, but was also an expert on other aspects of the economy. And, according to Econometrix, he “contributed to the development of many of the forecasting models which Econometrix has developed. Since 2002, he has supervised and contributed to Econometrix’s Consumer Market Trends product, and has conceived and created several forecasting models and accompanying intelligence packages for big public enterprises.”

An unconventional thinker, Twine’s most recent presentation struck a contentious note.

After carrying out a study, commissioned by Royal Dutch Shell, he concluded that the exploration for shale gas in the Karoo could create permanent and sustainable jobs, add to government revenue and make a positive impact on economic growth. The findings drew criticism and often bitter attacks from activists opposed to hydraulic fracturing.

On February 24, he spoke at a post-Budget presentation co-hosted by Business Report.

Twine is survived by his wife Marilyn. His funeral will be held at 2.30pm on Thursday at the Johannesburg Country Club, Auckland Park.

“Mr Twine made a valuable contribution to the development
of policies in several government departments and was part of a team that
drafted South Africa’s
energy policies,” Gordhan said in a statement.

Twine, 57, died on Sunday in Milpark hospital, following a heart
attack last week.

He was economist and director at Econometrix. Gordhan extended
his condolences to Twine’s family, friends and colleagues.

“The National Treasury valued his insight on such issues as
international ratings agencies, the automobile industry, petroleum markets and
various aspects of litigation and competition law economics,” Gordhan
said.

“As an eminent researcher and senior economist at
Econometrix, his widely-published opinions in international media helped to
form positive views of South Africa
by investors.”

Two weeks ago, Twine released a report on the positive economic
implications of the proposed Karoo shale gas
exploration, commissioned by Shell.

Twine matriculated from Pinelands
High School and graduated from UCT,
according to the Econometrix website. He studied at the University
of SA while working for Mobil Oil
Southern Africa, where he worked extensively on demand models for gasoline and
diesel.

He joined Datsun Nissan, where he worked as senior economist and
market research manager.

Twine joined Econometrix in 1983, and became a director in 1986.