Something smells funny here, page-3

I don't think we are far off. Everything is still proceeding. Just waiting to gazette final regulations this month.

South Africa to Gazette Shale Regulations

Monday, May 11, 2015
The shale gas industry in South Africa is set to finally kick off. According to the country’s minister of mineral resources, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, the government will gazette final regulations by June. The announcement of the gazette of the final regulations comes two years after the draft rules were released.
“We have finalized the regulations… It would be gazetted in a month’s time,”NgoakoRamatlhodi, Minister of Mineral Resources, told reporters before his budget speech to parliament.
While the pursuit of a shale industry will aid the country immensely with meeting its feedstock needs to fuel its power generation capacity, the government gazette may have come too late for some. Shell, who had applied for a shale exploration license, said in March that it was pulling back from the project. Shell’s retreat puts an estimated 50 Tcf up for grabs on the acreage it had applied for according to a study the company had conducted.
While Shell may have pulled back it remains to be seen if it will remain out of South Africa’s shale game, but even if it does there are other firms willing to take its place. Currently Falcon Oil & Gas, Chevron, and Bundu Gas have all applied for shale gas exploration licenses.
The government faced stiff opposition from environmentalists and residents in the Karoo Basin where the shale gas reserves are located, however the government maintains that it has consider every scenario with regards to shale gas extraction i.e. fracking. “We have taken into consideration the issues of water and regulations are going to address this sufficiently, providing proper guidance on how to undertake hydraulic fracturing,” said ThibediRamontja, director general in the department of mineral resources.


South African legislators call for fracking report as ministers consider shale gas exploration bids

Legislators in South Africa have called for a “comprehensive report as well as relevant legislation” regarding the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the country.01 Jun 2015

• Energy & Infrastructure finance
• Projects
• Energy
• Oil and gas
• Infrastructure
• Southern Africa
• Africa

The parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources made the call on 28 May as the government prepares to process applications for shale gas exploration rights in the Karoo Basin, in the Western Cape.
Committee chairman Sahlulele Luzipo said: “This information will empower us to understand all the nitty-gritty aspects that are involved in the exploration of shale gas and will also provide us with the opportunity to discharge our oversight mandate effectively.”   
Luzipo’s comments came after the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) briefed the committee on the future of the shale gas industry in the country and on progress towards amending existing regulations to specifically include shale gas exploration.  
The committee said it was “concerned about the level of public consultation” to date, but welcomed what it said was a DMR commitment to publish an amended regulatory framework policy soon.
In addition, the committee said it was asking for joint meetings with other parliamentary committees on issues relating to shale gas exploration, including those responsible for water and sanitation and environment affairs, “to develop modalities for effective oversight on matters of common interest”.
Oil and gas expert Jason Rosychuk of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: “With South Africa having the fifth largest recoverable shale gas reserves in the world, international oil companies have been eager to tap into the country’s bountiful resources. The announced impact assessment will undoubtedly result in influential environmental groups stepping up their pressure on the South African government to refuse any exploration permits.”
According to Deloitte, fracking has been the subject of “heated debate” In South Africa. “In 2010, international oil companies such as Shell SA, Bundu Gas & Oil and Falcon Gas & Oil, applied for shale gas exploration permits in the Karoo,” Deloitte said.
“In April 2011, a shale gas exploration moratorium was imposed by the South African government as a result of environmental groups such as the Treasure the Karoo Action Group, which believe fracking will cause irreparable damage to the Karoo’s biodiversity and underground and ground water reservoirs," it said.
Deloitte said the moratorium was lifted by the government in 2012, following the recommendations of a ‘task team’ of experts including representatives of several South African government departments and agencies.
The task team's report on investigations into fracking in the Karoo Basin (96-page / 2.8 MB PDF), published by the DMR in September 2012, recommended that the government authorise fracking “under strict supervision” by a monitoring committee. The report said the process could be halted “in the event of any unacceptable outcomes”.
However, the report recommended a series of steps be taken before actual fracking takes place, including “normal exploration... such as geological field mapping and other data gathering activities” under the existing regulatory framework. In addition, the monitoring committee should “ensure comprehensive and coordinated augmentation of the regulatory framework and supervision of operations”.
According to the report, the US Energy Information Administration had made a “first pass estimate of a technically recoverable resource of 485 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Karoo Basin”.
An evaluation of that assessment by PASA concluded that, “owing to the limited amount of available data in the area, it is impossible to quantify the resource accurately, other than to say that it is potentially very large” the report said. It is “essential that additional, modern sub-surface information be obtained through drilling or a geophysical survey to constrain these estimates”.
South Africa’s Department of Energy said last year that shale gas exploitation was among a number of infrastructure development options to make the country “energy independent”. An updated draft Integrated Resources Plan for electricity for 2010-30 projected a possible fall in gas prices resulting from large-scale exploitation of shale gas – leading to a switch in electricity generation from coal and nuclear towards gas.