{"id":5290,"date":"2019-09-13T10:16:10","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T07:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5290"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:32","slug":"what-a-major-offshore-gas-find-means-for-south-africas-energy-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/09\/13\/what-a-major-offshore-gas-find-means-for-south-africas-energy-future\/","title":{"rendered":"What A Major Offshore Gas Find Means For South Africa\u2019s Energy Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>By Robert\nScholes &amp; Rod Crompton<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Many South African politicians, economists, and specialists in the energy sector are celebrating the news that a promising show of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/energy\/total-discovers-net-gas-condensate-off-coast-of-sa-19175496\">natural gas has been discovered<\/a>\u00a0in deep water south of Mossel Bay. It was found in an offshore prospecting area called Brulpadda (Afrikaans for bullfrog), which is licensed to global energy giant Total.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The discovery<\/em> comes against the backdrop of\u00a0rising fuel prices\u00a0and an\u00a0electric utility in crisis, has raised hopes that it may be a game-changer<em>. The Conversation Africa\u2019s Nontobeko Mtshali spoke to Robert Scholes and Rod Crompton about the significance of the find.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Is\nthis an energy \u201cgame-changer\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s\nnot yet clear how big the find is. In a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.total.com\/en\/media\/news\/press-releases\/total-makes-significant-discovery-and-opens-new-petroleum-province-offshore-south-africa\">press\nrelease<\/a>, Total said it \u201ccould be around one billion barrels of global resources,\ngas and condensate light oil\u201d. To put that in perspective, South Africa\u2019s total\nrefinery capacity is 700 000 barrels of oil&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sapia.org.za\/overview\/south-african-fuel-industry\">per day<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\ngas is present over a relatively large vertical distance (57 metres), but it\u2019s\nnot clear how extensive the gas-rich area is. We simply won\u2019t know until more\nholes are drilled, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/library.seg.org\/doi\/10.1190\/1.1440268\">three-dimensional seismic\nsurveys<\/a>&nbsp;are completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gas\ncan be converted into liquid fuels. There are only a few gas-to-liquids\nrefineries around the world. PetroSA, South Africa\u2019s national oil company,\nbuilt one in Mossel Bay in 1989, which it still operates. It is the smallest\nrefinery in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nBrulpadda find contains condensates \u2013 a kind of light crude oil \u2013 which only\nPetroSA\u2019s Mossel Bay refinery can process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nmeans the biggest benefit will probably be to that refinery. It has a capacity\nof about 40 000 barrels&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sapia.org.za\/overview\/south-african-fuel-industry\">a day<\/a>,\nand the Brulpadda find \u2013 given its proximity \u2013 could extend its life\nsubstantially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-a-major-offshore-gas-find-means-for-south-africas-energy-future-111503\">Continue\nreading\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Robert Scholes &amp; Rod Crompton Many South African politicians, economists, and specialists in the energy sector are celebrating the news that a promising show of\u00a0natural gas has been discovered\u00a0in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}