By Liezl Human on GroundUp
- TotalEnergies is about to submit its ultimate application to drill up to 5 wells to search for oil or gas along the coast between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas.
- The ultimate spherical of public participation conferences was accomplished this month.
- Some environmental teams are opposing the challenge. They say oil and gas shouldn’t be a part of South Africa’s transition from coal.
- But TotalEnergies says gas will drastically cut back carbon emissions.
French vitality large TotalEnergies is getting ready to submit its ultimate application for approval to drill up to 5 wells for oil or gas between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas. The challenge has met opposition from environmental teams however the firm says it’s a part of South Africa’s transition from coal.
The scoping and environmental influence course of began in May this yr. If the challenge is authorized, the drill space will span about 10 000 sq. kilometres, with the closest level 60km from the coast and the furthest 170 kilometres.
This application is one in a rush of offshore oil and gas applications along South Africa’s coast. This is a part of a wider growth by multinational corporations into Africa, as a recent report by environmental analysis group Urgewald, in partnership with dozens of organisations in Africa and Europe, exhibits.
What is the following plan for TotalEnergies?
TotalEnergies is the largest oil and gas developer in Africa. In this challenge, it holds a 40% curiosity within the block, and is the operator. Shell has a 40% curiosity and the state-owned Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (PetroSA) has 20%.
A public participation course of concluded final week after conferences in coastal communities, together with Saldanha Bay, Hout Bay, Kleinmond and Hermanus. This shaped a part of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA). Independent assessors from SRL Consulting evaluated marine ecology influence, noise influence, socio-economic influence, fisheries influence, local weather influence, and air high quality influence.
The public will likely be in a position to submit public feedback till 7 December 2022. All the ESIA paperwork will be accessed here.
The Urgewald report factors out that in 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a roadmap, based mostly on the Paris local weather settlement of 2015, for stopping world temperatures from rising above 1.5°C. “According to this roadmap, exploration for new oil and gas reserves should cease and no further oil and gas fields should be developed beyond those that were already underway in 2021.”
Yet, the report factors out, “in 48 out of 55 African nations, oil, gas and coal companies are either exploring or developing new fossil reserves, building new fossil infrastructure such as pipelines or liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals or developing new gas- and coal-fired power plants”.
“These enormous fossil expansion plans are completely incompatible with the Paris goals and will lock African countries into an obsolete and carbon-heavy energy path,”
says the Urgewald report.
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But in a abstract of its influence evaluation report, SRL says the necessity to cut back carbon emissions to zero by 2050 “is balanced with the need to grow the economy and create jobs”.
The authorities “currently promotes the use of natural gas as part of the energy mix up to 2030 to serve as a transition to a carbon-neutral goal and provide the flexibility required to complement renewable energy sources,”
says SRL.
Oil and gas exploration varieties a part of the South African authorities’s priorities as a part of the Operation Phakisa’s Oceans Economy programme so as to cut back “dependence on expensive oil and gas imports”. But some environmental organisations and members of the general public are saying oil and gas shouldn’t be in South Africa’s future in any respect and that it doesn’t have a spot within the nation’s dedication to a “just transition” to zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Natural gas is neither “sustainable” nor “clean”, says Janet Solomon, co-founder of environmental coalition Oceans Not Oil. In its objections to the TotalEnergies challenge, Oceans Not Oil says the concept pure gas produces much less carbon emissions than coal is deceptive, due to methane leakage which is frequent throughout oil and gas operations.
Also, says Solomon, renewables are a quicker approach to meet the nation’s vitality wants.
Solomon stated that the ESIA additionally didn’t think about the fishing communities and the influence the exploration challenge would have on their heritage. “We’ve got a large informal economy that is totally reliant on a healthy ocean, from tourism to fisheries,” she stated. “The ocean is sacred to a lot of cultures in South Africa.”
Not many fishers attended the general public assembly held in Hout Bay earlier this month to focus on the challenge. This was as a result of they didn’t comprehend it was going down, says fisher Reagan James, Chief of the Katz Korana Royal House, who lives in Hout Bay and did attend the assembly.
“We make our livelihoods out of the sea. … Oil and gas is not going to benefit our community,”
he stated.
Greenpeace Africa spokesperson Chris Vlavianos informed GroundUp the TotalEnergies challenge can be shut to a number of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). “These are lifelines for local communities”, he stated, and nurseries for fish species.
Vlavianos says it’s “nonsensical” to pursue oil and gas within the context of the “just transition”. “It will achieve nothing but locking us into a high emissions trajectory, with little real economic benefits to people on the ground. Often, the jobs and economic upliftment promised by these projects do not materialise.”
The summary of the environmental evaluation does present that the exploration challenge overlaps with areas the place 4 species are fished, however means that with communication and coordination with fishers, its influence will be mitigated. The report notes that many individuals are “directly reliant on the ocean and coast for their livelihood, and social and spiritual wellbeing”.
Els Vermeulen, director of the Mammal Research Institute Whale Unit on the University of Pretoria, who attended the assembly in Hermanus, stated she had no main issues concerning the influence of the challenge on whales and mammals. She stated that the influence evaluation had been properly executed, that the exploration can be quick time period and never through the whale migration season.
TotalEnergies spokesperson Stéphanie Dezaunay, stated: “In South Africa, TotalEnergies is positioning itself as a player in the evolution of the country’s energy mix as part of the necessary transition from coal to renewable energies and gas”.
“South Africa’s economy is still predominantly coal-based, accounting for 80% of its current electricity generation. Access to energy, and in particular meeting the growing demand for electricity, is a major concern in South Africa, where load shedding and power cuts have been almost a daily occurrence for nearly 15 years and where air pollution from fine particles linked to coal burning is frequent,”
Dezaunay stated.
She stated using gas as a substitute of coal would halve carbon emissions and “drastically reduce air pollution”. TotalEnergies was additionally engaged on photo voltaic and wind vitality, she stated.
Asked how a lot of the output from the challenge can be used within the home market and the way a lot can be exported, she didn’t reply by the point of publication.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy didn’t reply to GroundUp’s questions.
This article was first printed on GroundUp
