By: Jean McKenzie

With global energy demand predicted to double by 2050, Shell South Africa chairperson and VP Bonang Mohale says that South Africa would be “stupid” not to look at the opportunity of shale gas exploitation in the Karoo.

The International Energy Agency estimates that there could be as much as 485-trillion cubic feet (tcf) of reserves in the Karoo, which Mohale said were significantly larger than the Russian gas fields which were estimated at 128 tcf.

Speaking at a South African National Energy Association event in Cape Town on Wednesday, Mohale argued that countries such as the Netherlands and the US have used their gas reserves to significant advantage. He said that the Netherlands used its resources for internal development , the US reduced its dependency on oil from the Middle East and that South Africa had similar opportunities which should be embraced.

With an area of 80 000 km2 being considered for hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’, Mohale said that only about 1% of this total area would be used for production and that the landscape would not be littered with wells.

“Sometimes when you hear there will be six-million trucks here and billions of litres of water - it’s back of the cigarette box mathematics. In reality it doesn’t quite work like that. We have been doing this for the last 60 years, so hydraulic fracturing is not a new technology for Shell or indeed in the mining industry in general. We have 1.1-million wells mostly in the US where we have been experimenting with this technology and where we have successfully drilled the wells.”

Also attending the lecture was Treasure the Karoo Action Group chairperson Jonathan Deal, who was not placated by Mohales’s assurance that Shell had many years experience in fracking. “Our opposition to fracking is not about Shell, it’s about the technology. We know very well that if Shell had an attack of conscience tomorrow and they withdrew from the fracking application that your area for exploration would be filled by another international oil company in a very short space of time, so I’m dealing specifically with the technology.”

Deal’s sentiments were echoed by other audience members at the lecture who repeatedly asked questions relating to the possibility of the failure of the technology and what mitigation strategies Shell had in place in the event of a disaster such as contamination of a groundwater aquifer.

Mohale and Shell SA spokesperson Kim Bye Bruun said that risk mitigation should be the primary focus, so as to ensure that incidents did not occur in the first place. Mohale and Bye Bruun said that proper pressure testing of equipment should be carried out before fracking began.

“Contamination of groundwater aquifers could be seen as a disaster. It shouldn’t happen and we will obviously put every measure in place to make sure that it doesn’t,” said Bye Bruun.

Mohale reiterated that Shell has never experienced such issues in all its shale gas activities and Bye Bruun added that the US Environmental Protection Agency has stated that they were not aware of any aquifer contamination incidents that have occurred through fracking.

Responding to queries as to where sufficient water would be found for the fracking activities, Bye Bruun said that these questions would only be addressed during the exploration phase, should Shell be granted the exploration licence by the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA).

According to Mohale, PASA’s review period of 120 days for Shell’s application for an exploration licence lapsed on August 12, but that it had still not received any answer as to whether its application had been granted or not.

Meanwhile, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu extended a moratoirum on prospecting for share gas for a further six months to allow time for public consultation on the matter, newswire Sapa reports.

Quoting the Minister, Sapa said that a final report on shale gas will go to Cabinet in September, and not this month as originally planned.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/sa-would-be-stupid-to-ignore-karoo-shale-gas-opportunities-shell-2011-08-18