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The home club of British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen was one of a number of golf clubs around South Africa that teed off the 2012 Sanlam Cancer Challenge in March.

The Sanlam Cancer Challenge celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year as South Africa’s biggest charitable sporting event this year.

The nationwide amateur tournament, which last year drew 37 000 golfers from 800 club qualifying competitions, annually raises millions of rands for the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA). Since its inception in 1993 it has raised over R26 million for CANSA to assist with research into the disease and the treatment thereof.

And Oosthuizen’s Albertinia Golf Club near Mossel Bay in the Eastern Cape saw a group of 19 golfers do their bit in raising R1 400, including R260 for a raffle of a bottle of brandy and the selling of a few boerewors rolls, in the fight against cancer.

But it was the Prins Albert Golf Club in the Central Karoo that once again stood out with its contribution in March.

This year, with only 11 players taking part and which forms about the entire membership there, the club managed to raise R18 210. It’s a significant increase on the R13 000 they raised last year.

“For the past 20 years we’ve been proud to support CANSA with the help of thousands of golfers around South Africa,” said Gary van Loggerenberg, Sanlam Sponsorship Manager.

“This is a tournament that enables club golfers anywhere in the country to do something positive and make a real impact through the game they love.”

The Sanlam Cancer Challenge’s significant status in South African golf will be recognised in the South African Golf Hall of Fame at the Oubaai Golf Estate near George, where the tournament will be permanently showcased.

The nationwide club competitions will take place from March to July, the Regional Finals from August to September, and culminating in the Finals at Sun City on both the Gary Player Country Club and Lost City Golf Club courses in October.

The home club of British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen was one of a number of golf clubs around South Africa that teed off the 2012 Sanlam Cancer Challenge in March.

The Sanlam Cancer Challenge celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year as South Africa’s biggest charitable sporting event this year.

The nationwide amateur tournament, which last year drew 37 000 golfers from 800 club qualifying competitions, annually raises millions of rands for the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA). Since its inception in 1993 it has raised over R26 million for CANSA to assist with research into the disease and the treatment thereof.

And Oosthuizen’s Albertinia Golf Club near Mossel Bay in the Eastern Cape saw a group of 19 golfers do their bit in raising R1 400, including R260 for a raffle of a bottle of brandy and the selling of a few boerewors rolls, in the fight against cancer.

But it was the Prins Albert Golf Club in the Central Karoo that once again stood out with its contribution in March.

This year, with only 11 players taking part and which forms about the entire membership there, the club managed to raise R18 210. It’s a significant increase on the R13 000 they raised last year.

“For the past 20 years we’ve been proud to support CANSA with the help of thousands of golfers around South Africa,” said Gary van Loggerenberg, Sanlam Sponsorship Manager.

“This is a tournament that enables club golfers anywhere in the country to do something positive and make a real impact through the game they love.”

The Sanlam Cancer Challenge’s significant status in South African golf will be recognised in the South African Golf Hall of Fame at the Oubaai Golf Estate near George, where the tournament will be permanently showcased.

The nationwide club competitions will take place from March to July, the Regional Finals from August to September, and culminating in the Finals at Sun City on both the Gary Player Country Club and Lost City Golf Club courses in October.

UP TO 80% of declared global coal, oil and gas reserves, worth an estimated $22-trillion, would have to remain in the ground if the damaging effects of global warming were to be staved off, research warns.

This is revealed in the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a project of Investor Watch, a nonprofit company that aims to align capital markets with efforts to tackle climate change.

For SA, which has 3,7% of the world’s coal reserves and interest from several multinational companies in probing the Karoo’s untapped shale gas resource — estimated to be the world’s fifth-largest — taking the United Nations’ 2° C target seriously will mean a revamp of SA’s chosen economic trajectory. The 2° C target is the limiting of emissions of gases linked to human-induced climate change, so that the world’s average temperature increase remains at a maximum of 2° C above the average pre-industrial global temperature.

The National Planning Commission — the unit in the Presidency responsible for plotting SA’s future — has warned that SA needs to move away from reliance on its mining sector for growth, but also says SA must position itself to benefit from what some believe is a gathering commodities boom. It has advised SA to at least determine the size of its shale-gas resource.

Even ignoring the 2° C threshold, climatologist Simon Gear says the world’s easily reached oil, gas and coal have already been exploited, and BP predicts a 2056 peak for oil production and a 2068 production peak for natural gas. Other predictions do not foresee phosphorus production outlasting 100 years, or coal 188 years.

Carbon Tracker’s report, Unburnable Carbon — Are the world’s financial markets carrying a carbon bubble?, warns that to reduce to 20% the chance of exceeding the 2° C target, the world has to limit greenhouse gas emissions to the equivalent of 886 gigaton s (Gt) of carbon dioxide. Calculations of global emissions published in the scientific peer review journal Nature indicate the world had already emitted the equivalent of 321Gt of carbon dioxide in the first decade of this century.

This leaves a “budget” of about 565Gt. In contrast, the total carbon dioxide-equivalent potential of the earth’s proven reserves comes to 2795Gt, 65% of this from coal, 22% from oil and 13% from gas, according to the report.

Carbon Tracker’s position is supported by Bill McKibben, a professor at the US’s Middlebury College and founder of climate campaign 350.org. He says : “In ecological terms it would be extremely prudent to write off $20-trillion worth of those reserves. In economic terms, of course, it would be a disaster, first and foremost for shareholders and executives of companies .”

Doing this would put investment portfolios — especially those with a long-term view — at risk of losing value in a “carbon bubble” that would make the subprime crisis look small, says report author James Leaton. “Given that only one-fifth of the total reserves can be used (if the world’s average temperature increase) is to stay below 2° C, if this is applied uniformly, then only 149 of the 745Gt (of carbon dioxide equivalent gases) listed can be used unmitigated. This is where the carbon-asset bubble is located. If applied to the world’s stock markets, this could result in a repricing of assets on a scale that would dwarf past profit warnings and revaluation of reserves,” he says.

Shell SA, Total SA, Anglo American and Sasol either said there was not enough time to comment on the report, or ignored requests for comment.

Mr Leaton says oil, gas and coal companies are in a tight spot because their share price is tied to their known reserves. Analysis by McKinsey and the Carbon Trust, a UK-based nonprofit firm set up to assist business and public sectors cut emissions, says a company’s reserves contribute about 50% of the financial value attributed to it by investors.

Sustainable investment advisor Graham Sinclair and KPMG resource economist Rohitesh Dhawan believe research such as the Carbon Bubble report is important because it informs debate, increasing knowledge of the full price of the commodities. “In the long run, it is our hope and expectation that policy makers will align the requirements of science, in the form of a carbon budget, with policies designed to promote action that contains emissions to required levels.”

SA has committed to conditionally reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 34% below “business as usual” by 2020 — a target that falls within that required by science. SA is to implement a carbon tax in the 2013-14 tax year, and Deloitte sustainability and climate-change director Duane Newman says South Africans already pay about R10bn a year in ” carbon taxes” such as levies on vehicle emissions, electricity and fuel.

World Wide Fund for Nature SA climate change programme manager Richard Worthington says SA’s Integrated Resource Plan to 2030 shows investment in renewable energy sources is “still a fraction” of what investors have been putting into fossil fuels in SA. “Maybe you just can’t believe SA can get 100% of its energy from renewables, but what is realistic is a product of people’s attitudes and beliefs and one way to get people to review their beliefs is to ask, ‘Would you like to have your assets stranded?’.”

blaines@bdfm.co.za

Karoo, South Africa. Photo: flowcomm. Used under Creative Commons license

The Karoo is not as well known as Kruger National Park with its elephants, leopards and lions. Located in the Western Cape region of South Africa, it is a desert area that is home to tortoises and eagles, and has been the subject of recent experiments to resettle the black rhino and resurrect the quagga, an unusual zebra like creature that went extinct in 1998. But today the people, flora and fauna of the Karoo are threatened by companies like Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil company, which wants to drill for natural gas.

Like many ancient lands, the Karoo has fossil fuels trapped underground. Royal Dutch Shell, Falcon Oil Gas and Bundu Oil Gas want to explore 90,000 square kilometres for the natural gas using a controversial new technology called “fracking”

Bonang Mohale, the chairman of Shell South Africa, recently described the business potential as “bigger than the discovery of gold in Gauteng”

However, a coalition of concerned citizens – Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG) – has sprung up to oppose the plan. Their mission to their fellow citizens is simple: “South Africa cannot afford to gamble with your water supply, food security, the health of your family, and the heritage of your children in pursuit of a short-term gain for foreign oil companies and our government.”

TKAG is supported by Greenpeace, who attempt to explain what this technology does: “To access these reserves, fluid is pumped down a drilled channel (well) into the gas-bearing rock at very high pressures. This causes the rock to fracture, creating fissures and cracks through which the gas can ‘escape’. The fracturing liquid generally consists of mainly water, mixed with sand and chemicals. Numerous different chemical agents are used, many of which are flagged as dangerous to humans and the environment (carcinogens, acute toxins).

“The fracturing of a single well requires a huge volume of water: around 9,000 – 29,000 m3 (9 -29 million litres). Chemicals make up about 2% of the fracturing liquid, i.e. about 180,000 – 580,000 litres. Only 15 – 80% of the injected fluid is recovered, meaning that the rest remains underground, where it is a source of contamination to water aquifers.”

Chris Hartnady, a well known geologist, says that fracking could have a huge impact on the Karoo desert especially because it will deplete the dwindling water supply. “Shale gas production would become a serious competitor for water, requiring as much as four times the current annual usage of the groundwater in all three of the Shell exploration areas,” he said at the Shale Gas Southern Africa conference in Cape Town earlier this week.

Hartnady noted that surface water might also become contaminated with fracking fluids and waste water. Indeed, communities in the U.S. have seen tap water catch on fire in fracking areas. (Watch this YouTube video and this one from Time magazine) Fracking can also dramatically increase the likelihood of earthquakes, according to recent research in Youngstown, Ohio, where residents were hit last Christmas Eve and again on New Year’s Eve.

To learn more about the dangers of fracking, check out the film Gasland and the Drilling Down series in the New York Times.

Gas, including the “controlled” extraction of the Karoo’s shale gas resources, needs to play a more significant role in South Africa’s future energy mix, Minister in The Presidency Responsible for the National Planning Commission Trevor Manuel said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) colloquial in Johannesburg, Manuel and Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said that gas could play an important role in helping the country transition to a lower-carbon economy and in ensuring that the cost of that transition could be borne by the economy and its citizens.

Shale gas could also play a role, along with imported natural gas from Mozambique and Namibia, in diversifying South Africa’s electricity mix, which was still dominated by coal, which formed the primary energy for more than 90% of the country’s power generation.

A task team had been established by the Department of Mineral Resources to assess the potential costs and benefits of the exploitation of South Africa’s indicated shale gas resources in the Karoo basin, which have been estimated by the US Energy Information Agency as being 485-trillion cubic feet.

In the meantime, a moratorium had been put in place on the issuance of shale gas exploration licences and the prohibition would only be lifted once Cabinet had applied its mind to that report.

Manuel noted that the National Development Report, which had been drafted by the 25-member National Planning Commission, said that the country should factor more gas into the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity, which set out a framework for the development of power generation capacity for the period 2010 to 2030. The IRP would be reviewed in 2012, but was only expected to be revised during 2013 once the IEP processes had been completed – the IEP2012 is a multifaceted plan that will guide South Africa’s broader energy policy and guide its electricity and liquid fuels investments over a 20-year horizon.

“The capital costs of gas are cheaper and in a capital-scarce country, this is an important consideration,” Manuel said, noting that gas could also complement renewable energy and improve the economics of renewable facilities.

He, thus, appealed for a “rational” and “informed” discussion on the potential exploitation of South Africa’s unconventional gas resources. “We want to raise the quality of the debate, not the volume.”

But Manuel also indicated that South Africa was unlikely to pursue the unregulated model deployed in the US, referring in particularly to the country’s relative water stresses as a key constraint.

“But it can’t be all or nothing,” he said.

Peters added that South Africa’s shale gas potential “cannot be ignored”, as it could bolster supply-side security, contribute to economic growth and development and help the country in meeting its emission commitments.

“We are cognisant of the controversies associated with shale gas extraction processes, such as ground water and soil contamination. However, with the ongoing developments I am confident that these challenges will, in the not too distant future, come to pass,” Peters said.

Proposed amendment to the Gas Act would also serve before Cabinet soon, which could help facilitate greater gas importation and might also facilitate the development of unconventional gas resources.

However, Peters refused to elaborate on the possible amendments saying that she would do so only once Cabinet had deliberated on the matter, which would be soon.

Stage 2 of the Absa Cape Epic yesterday was supposed to be a rest day.

The stage took place around Robertson in the dry Klein Karoo. 122km sounds like a formidable distance to cover on a mountain bike, right? Yet course designer Leon Evans, also (less affectionately) known as Dr Evil, considered this a rest day. Ha Ha.

The “rest day” moniker must come from the fact that the total climbing during yesterday’s stage was a relatively paltry 1 650m vertical.

Compared to Monday’s stage (2 350m) and today’s stage (almost 3 000m) it appears mild. But we weren’t fooled. The terrain remains rough, rocky and vicious, no matter the climbing statistics.

We awoke again to overcast skies, and even felt a touch of rain as we climbed out of our race village tents and prepped our bikes. With cool temperatures we knew the pace would be fast.

My teammate Carl Pasio and I were feeling much better after our tribulations on Monday’s Stage 1.

Stage 2 of the Absa Cape Epic

Sven Martin/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS

A strong massage had restored the legs and a sneaky glass (or two) of red wine at the dining marquee had restored our spirits.

As predicted the main bunch left Robertson at a cracking tempo. We were happy to hang on to about 20th position as riders settled into two or three bunches in the early racing.

The terrain was very similar to yesterday, with high-speed sections of red Klein Karoo earth and lots of small climbs on loose rock. A 50m weir spanning the Breede River cooled us momentarily as we splashed our way to the other side.

What followed was a stunning roller-coaster of fynbos singletrack. Carl was tearing through it, with me close on his rear wheel. Then, as we skirted some vineyards, Carl’s tyre began to hiss. Not again. We tried our best to seal the gaping hole with rubber plugs, but it wouldn’t hold. So we limped a few kilometres to the next waterpoint and eventually fitted a new tyre, rejoining the race in about 40th position.

The flat had destroyed our high-flying rhythm and we struggled to chase down the teams who had passed us. Carl put his years of triathlon and road riding competition to good use, as he buried his head on his handlebars and slip-streamed me between groups. His power brought us back to 30th, before we turned for the welcoming finish line.

The Epic is starting to take its toll on riders. While we’ve encountered our fair share of mechanical troubles, I am grateful to the mountain bike gods that both of us are still in one piece. We’re tired, sure. But we’re healthy and on trails as fierce as these, that is no mean feat. All around us evidence of the gruelling test of skill and endurance is starting to mount.

The race village is full of bruised riders, limping between the red tents on the Robertson Primary School fields.

Before yesterday 37 riders were out of the race, but I expect Stage 1’s incessant heat to affect riders over the next few days.

South Africa’s Karoo-based KAT-7 radio telescope array (also known as the MeerKAT Precursor Array) has made a major step in its transition from being an engineering prototype to an operational and scientifically useful instrument. The seven-dish array has successfully observed radio emissions from neutral hydrogen gas in the NGC 3109 galaxy, which is located some 4.3-million light years from earth.

“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,” enthuses SKA South Africa director Dr Bernie Fanaroff. “Our team in the SKA South Africa project and universities has again shown that they can deliver cutting-edge technology and do excellent science on a very tight schedule.”

Neutral hydrogen gas radio emissions have an exact frequency of 1 420 MHz. Those from NGC 3109 were processed in KAT-7’s correlator, which currently can determine the velocity of the gas to an accuracy of 10 km/s, but, by the end of this year, will have been upgraded to achieve an accuracy of 1 km/s.

“Such a high velocity resolution will allow us to distinguish between the conventional models [of the universe] which suppose the presence of an important quantity of dark matter (matter that cannot be seen but that is detected by its gravitational influence) and the Modified Newtonian Dynamics ([commonly called] Mond) models which suppose that no dark matter is present but that it is instead the laws of gravity that change on galaxy scales,” says University of Cape Town South African SKA Research Chair (Multi Wavelength Astronomy) professor Claude Carignan.

NGC 3109 is notable for a significant warp in its disk. “We also speculate that . . . [the] unusual warp in the disk of this galaxy could be caused by a tidal interaction with its dwarf companion galaxy known as Antlia,” suggests Carignan. “Future KAT-7 observations should reveal more information on this possible interaction.” Interestingly, NGC was discovered by British astronomer John Herschel in 1835 while he was carrying out astronomical observations in South Africa.

KAT-7 was originally a prototype for the MeerKAT radio telescope array, now being developed at the same location in the Karoo. MeerKAT will comprise 64 dishes, each with a diameter of 13.5 m, and is itself intended as a precursor to the giant international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope. South Africa and Australia are the two countries competing to host the SKA (although there has been talk of splitting it between the two countries). The decision should be announced in the near future. Should South Africa win, MeerKAT would become part of the SKA. Should Australia win, MeerKAT would remain a major, and globally important, scientific instrument.

“A large proportion of the science planned for the SKA – and MeerKAT – involves [the] mapping of the universe using neutral hydrogen,” explains Fanaroff. “Because of the ongoing expansion of the universe, distant galaxies are moving away from us. Measuring the frequency of the spectral line from neutral hydrogen in those galaxies allows us to work out how far away they are. By finding billions of distant galaxies, astronomers will be able to map the structure of the universe and how it has changed over time. This cosmic census of the neutral hydrogen in galaxies – far and near – is essential in understanding the deeper physics of the universe, by answering fundamental questions such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy.”

March 27 2012 at 12:50pm
By SAPA

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REUTERS

International petroleum group Shell could spend up to 200 million US dollars (about 1.4 billion rand) in the exploration phase of its plans to extract shale gas in the Karoo.

Shell UK says it is withdrawing some of its workers from two North Sea platforms near an underwater gas leak from a Total-run rig.

Shell’s move on Tuesday follows the discovery of a leak beneath the Total SA’s Elgin platform on Sunday, which prompted the evacuation of all 238 workers there.

Shell described the partial evacuation as precautionary, and both platforms continue to operate.

The leak on Total’s platform started during work to plug and abandon the well.

A surveillance flight on Monday detected a sheen around the platform, believed to be caused by gas condensate – a petrol-like substance that contains oil.

An explosion triggered by a leak of gas condensate caused one of Britain’s worst oil disasters, which killed 167 people on the Piper Alpha rig in 1988. – Sapa-AP

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2012-03-28 11:20

Duncan Alfreds

Cape Town – Miracles are of an alternative realm and cannot be used to disprove science, a palaeontologist said.

“When you’re talking about miracles, that’s well and fine. You’re totally out of the scientific rational viewpoint. But don’t use your miracles to try and disprove science,” Dr Jurie van den Heever, a palaeontologist at Stellenbosch University told News24.

Van den Heever is an author and science educator who has spent time instructing South African teachers on how to teach evolution in life science lessons.

It has emerged that some teachers do not teach the required curriculum, but Van den Heever said the government’s policy to teach evolution was correct.

“Our government has now come and said ‘We acknowledge the fact that evolution is the foundation of biology and much of other science and consequently, if we want to teach true knowledge, we must teach evolution at school’.”

Alternative ideas

In the US, fundamentalist groups have questioned the teaching of evolution, saying that it is only a theory. Alternative ideas such as intelligent design and other creationist viewpoints have been proposed for science lessons.

The idea has gained popularity in SA and the education department’s Caps (Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement) document for life science specifies “different cultural and religious expalanations for the origin and development of life on Earth” (sic).

Some have slammed the position of science teachers who do not teach evolution correctly in lessons, saying that it stunted the development of students.

“People are resilient and they’re capable of change and sometimes people who come from a very fundamentalist background can still at some point see the light and… be saved. But I think it’s really terrible when a teacher has that position over a child,” psychohistorian Auke Slotegraaf told News24.

Van den Heever went further, and said that if one was opposed to evolution, it meant that one was racist.

“All humans belong to the same species and it can be proven genetically; anatomically. And if you belong to the same species, the biological species concept tells you if you can interbreed and produce viable offspring you belong to the same species and you cannot discriminate people the way that they did in the apartheid regime.

“If you are using those kinds of arguments to say that evolution is wrong, you are automatically in that whole morass of racism and apartheid,” he added.

Evidence

He urged people not to interpret the Bible literally, saying that miracles went beyond the scientific method.

“This is the creationist view: In the sense of these fundamental people who think that the Bible can be interpreted literally. Even theologians tell you it can’t.”

Science had the ability to demonstrate evidence for theories that made it reliable and testable, Van den Heever said.

He cited the example of the ear bones that evolved from the reptilian jaw and commonly found in Karoo fossils.

“We have in South Africa the best scientific evidence for macro evolution in the world. We’ve got this array of mammal-like reptile fossils in the Karoo and these fossils are abundant and they’ve been studied for hundreds of years.

“They show how one major group of animals – the reptiles – slowly changed into another major group of animals – the mammals, Mammalia. These fossils show gradual changes over time – changing from a reptile-like animal to a mammal-like animal.”

In the mammalian middle ear, the incus, stapes, malleus, and tympanic membrane have been shown to correspond to the quadrate, prearticular, articular, and angular structures in the reptile jaw.

Van den Heever said that evolution was a reality and that people who disputed it were deluded.

“If you want to live in la-la land and think of miracles, that’s fine – no problem – but you cannot disprove science by miracles.”

– Follow Duncan on Twitter

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

File photo: Anti Fracking protestors march down Long Street. Picture: Brenton Geach

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• Water shortages could cause wars – report

If drilling for shale gas in the Karoo gets the go-ahead, the industry will become a “serious competitor” for water, one of SA’s leading earth scientists has warned.

According to a media release sent out on behalf of his consultancy, Dr Chris Hartnady told the Shale Southern Africa conference in Cape Town on Monday that shale gas production would require as much as four times the current annual groundwater use in all three of the Karoo areas that have been allocated to Shell for exploration.

Hartnady, an expert in structural geology and tectonics, said players needed to be aware of the environmental impacts and geophysical risks of shale gas production, and should evaluate the full energy cost and other economic considerations of the proposed gas exploitation in the Karoo.

Hartnady quoted estimates that the gas exploration phase in three areas of the Karoo would require between 48 000m3 and 216 000m3 of water, using 24 exploratory wells.

But should these test wells prove that the gas deposits were viable, actual production would require about 10 000 wells, he said, pointing out that the Marcellus and Barnett shale gas areas in the US, with similar reserves, required 12 000 and 14 000 wells.

This meant the gas production phase in the Karoo would require an additional 5 000m3 to 20 000m3 of water per well, with overall water demand in the range of 50-200 million cubic metres.

He pointed out that groundwater contamination was possible.

Hartnady also warned of the dangers of seismic events like earthquakes.

Referring to a 5.6 magnitude earthquake measured in Oklahoma last year, he said this US shale gas-producing state had previously had about 30 small earthquakes a year but since 2010/11, this had soared to more than 1 000 annually.

He believed this was because of the “dramatic increase” in the disposal of waste-water brines from unconventional oil and shale-gas production.

“The 2011 ‘hydroseismic’ events in Oklahoma and Ohio bear important lessons for the Karoo, especially since significant earthquake activity is present.

The earthquake catalogue of SA shows many epicentres within and around the Karoo,” Hartnady warned. – Cape Argus

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REUTERS

International petroleum group Shell could spend up to 200 million US dollars (about 1.4 billion rand) in the exploration phase of its plans to extract shale gas in the Karoo.

Thirty-five Nigerian villages are suing Royal Dutch Shell PLC in a British court, claiming that the company’s slow response to two spills in 2008 left their delta region soaked in crude oil that destroyed the environment and their livelihoods.

Shell, long the dominant oil company in crude-rich Nigeria, on Friday quickly denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said the spills represented only a fraction of the damage done in a community where thieves routinely tap into its pipelines without concern for the environment.

The lawsuit, which was publicised in the British media long before it was filed Friday, seeks unspecified damages and a legal order for Shell to clean the polluted waterways and marshlands of 35 villages around the town of Bodo in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. There, the suit alleges Shell allowed 560,000 barrels of oil – or 88.9 million liters (23.5 million gallons) – to spill over weeks before finally stopping the flow from its malfunctioning pipelines.

The spills, estimated by experts from video footage of the damage at the time, came before any other spills or damage occurred in the communities, said lawyer Martyn Day, a senior partner of Leigh Day Co., which is representing the villages.

Lawyers for the communities filed the suit in London, where the transnational corporation has one of its head offices, out of concerns of not being able to get a fair trial in Nigeria. Shell agreed to the jurisdiction of the suit.

The villages are part of a region of Nigeria’s Niger Delta known as Ogoniland. Crude production in Ogoniland stopped in 1993, but pipelines and flow stations operated by a Shell subsidiary and the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. still run through villages and fields.

Villages and communities remain largely hostile to Shell and other oil firms because of environmental damage and the execution of Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigeria’s former military regime in 1995. However, Day said the communities would have welcomed Shell’s help during the 2008 spills.

“The communities were absolutely desperate to bring Shell to get the leak capped,” the lawyer told The Associated Press on Friday.

Shell, however, has said only 4,000 barrels of oil – or 635,000 liters (168,000 gallons) – spilled in the two leaks.

The company now blames many of its spills on “bunkering” in the delta, where thieves drill or saw directly into pipelines to steal the crude oil inside.

The stolen crude either gets shipped out in the country’s thriving black market oil trade or is refined into crude diesel or kerosene in makeshift refineries.

In a statement Friday, Shell blamed the threat of a lawsuit for “preventing us from gaining access to the area and cleaning up the pollution caused by others since 2009.”

Compensation for the spills was “severely delayed because of internal rifts between members of the Bodo community and lawyers representing factions within the community,” the statement quoted Mutiu Sunmonu, the managing director of Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, as saying.

The lawsuit comes amid new international attention to spills in Ogoniland and across the Niger Delta, a region where some environmentalists say much as 2.1 billion liters (550 million gallons) of oil have spilled during more than 50 years of production. That would be at a rate roughly comparable to one Exxon Valdez disaster per year.

Today, oil stains coastlines and brackish creeks in the delta. Large plumes of dark smoke also rise in the air from the makeshift refineries’ massive blazes to cook stolen crude oil.

A report released in August by the United Nations’ environmental program estimated it could take as many as 30 years to clean Ogoniland alone. The report suggested the Nigerian government and the oil industry set up an initial $1 billion trust fund for the cleanup – something that has yet to be done.

That report sparked a $1 billion lawsuit in US federal court. The US Supreme Court currently is considering another lawsuit by 12 Nigerians against Shell claiming that the company aided a brutal government crackdown in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

The UK court will use Nigerian law to rule on the lawsuit filed Friday, barring any pretrial settlement. – Sapa-AP

REUTERS

International petroleum group Shell could spend up to 200 million US dollars (about 1.4 billion rand) in the exploration phase of its plans to extract shale gas in the Karoo.

Royal Dutch Shell is struggling to pay off $1 billion that it owes Iran for crude oil because European Union and US financial sanctions now make it almost impossible to process payments, industry sources said.

Four sources said the oil major owes a large sum to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) for deliveries of crude, with one putting the figure at close to $1 billion. A debt of that size would equate to roughly four large tanker loads of Iranian crude or about 8 million barrels.

“Shell is working hard to figure out a way to pay NIOC,” said an industry source, who requested anonymity. “It’s very sensitive and very difficult. They want to stay on good terms with Iran, while abiding by sanctions.”

A Shell spokesman declined to comment.

The European Union toughened financial sanctions and placed a ban on Iranian oil imports on January 23, but gave companies until July 1 to wind down their existing business.

With daily contract volumes of 100,000 barrels, Shell ranked as Iran’s second biggest corporate client – along with France’s Total – behind Turkey’s Tupras.

Shell CEO Peter Voser said on Mar. 7 the company would take its final deliveries of Iranian crude “within a matter of weeks”.

Rigorous US and European financial measures, aimed at punishing Iran for its nuclear programme have already come into force, making it increasingly difficult to pay for and ship crude from Iran, say oil executives.

“There are big frustrations with the payment route – the US pressure is really working,” said a senior oil source. “It’s now nearly impossible to use the banking system.”

Such financial restrictions were in part behind Total’s decision to stop purchasing Iranian crude at the end of last year, industry sources say. Total also bought about 100,000 barrels per day from Tehran.

Industry sources say some of Iran’s big customers may have been using the Dubai-based Noor Islamic Bank to channel payments to Iran. It is not known whether Shell was processing payments via Noor Islamic Bank.

Diplomats say the bank bowed to pressure from Washington and cut ties with Iranian banks in the United Arab Emirates at the end of last year.

Given the outstanding amount owed in the face of sanctions, senior oil executives say the only way forward is for Shell to ask the British government to help settle the account with Iran.

An approach was made by Shell, sources say, but the company was rebuffed.

A small portion of the Shell debt could be written off through an outstanding payment NIOC owes the company for development of the offshore Soroush/Nowrooz oilfields, say industry sources.

Shell and European rivals such as Total and Italy’s Eni have built longstanding relationships with Iran, OPEC’s second largest exporter, through their work at the country’s oilfields and years of crude oil purchases.

But while the are loath to burn bridges with Tehran, they also cannot afford to put business in the United States and elsewhere in the West at risk. – Reuters