South Africa will auction at least 10 new onshore blocks for shale gas exploration in the environmentally sensitive Karoo region, a government official told Reuters, as the country eyes alternative energy sources to ease its worst-ever power crisis.
Falcon Oil & Gas (FO.V) and Bundu Gas and Oil Exploration, a majority-owned unit of Australia's Challenger Exploration (CEL.AX), retained rights to apply for exploration licenses, Sayidini said.
"We believe this is the place to be with the best potential to make it commercially viable," Philip O'Quigley, Falcon's CEO told Reuters of the southern part of the basin, where the company is seeking a license.
Some 2,500 soil samples from the Karoo were sent overseas for analysis, PASA officials said."Those confirmed gas and even oil seepages, so we now believe there might even be potential for oil in the Karoo," Sayidini said.
