Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
Heres a novel idea, get the BEETALOO up and running, they cant even get their cr@p together with a friendly government!
Oleo,
While the recent report that the Karoo has economic shale gas reserves in place, that has been known and obvious for almost a decade now. Further to what WetWater was referencing on endless corruption -- the first of many stumbling blocks in any forward progress in S.A. is passing the proposed legislation that would allow exploration companies to actually drill in the Karoo. Currently, no company (except the gov't endorsed and University led minor drilling program a couple of years ago) can drill any exploration wells in the Karoo as the legislation that would allow that has still not been passed in both houses of the government. That proposed legislation has been bouncing back and forth between the various gov't ministries for almost six years now -- with the newest set of elected idiots in S.A. blaming the prior set of elected idiots for not getting anything done as they do the same!!!
Until the draft amendments on shale gas drilling in the Karoo (and elsewhere in S.A.) is passed -- there is absolutely nothing moving forward on Shale gas in the Karoo. Once the legislation is approved -- then you can expect POQ to possibly initiate discussions with companies like Sasol (who of course POQ has dealt with before) and is a politically connected entity in S.A. Right now -- there is absolutely no way Falcon or Shell or Bandu will waste a penny in S.A. as it would be pisxing more money away on a government that can't find it's own rear end with two hands.
“You didn’t ask if it was all right to come here. You made up the rules. Who will give you permission to come on my land? I can give you the answer now. No, you may not enter!
“My gates are locked. And don’t come with any helicopters, because my shotgun will be loaded.”
........................................................
Welcome to the oil and gas business.
I myself was involved in negotiations with farmers about entering, buying their sacrosanct land and property (ok in my case no shotgun was involved but it was a dung fork - and I was not in a wild west country as Texas ;-) At the end of the day the oil company sits together with the mining authorities (who handle oil, gas, coal etc for the state) together with the farmer and you as O&G company get your deal with the farmer (if you expect a lot of oil, gas, that is worth the effort)
corruption and/or allegatons of corruptions in Africa, thats nothing new to the oil industry: if you cannot or do not know how to deal with that you should not be a CEO of an O&G company with assets in Africa. There are many oil and gas managers out there who have a track record how to close deals successfully in Africa -
I think it is too easy to say thats the excuse or the reason to stop activities in SA. FOG has to set up a team to solve the SA problem in my opinion.
I was not amused when I saw the strange things happening in the Beetaloo concerning operations with Org. I think in the meantime Fog, POQ has tackled this problem . With the new guys with the Pioneer background I expect that the right people at FOG read the suggested work programs and read the daily well site reports from Org. And if something sounds strange or wrong I expect that somebody picks up the phone or sends an email for discussion with ORG to get the best result.
The same should be done with the SA problem. I am sure, there is a solution (not easy but can be done if you know your stake holders)
POQ has received allegations of corruption in South Africa when Zuma was in charge, but as WetWater states, the new government was even worse. It would be very difficult to operate in SA. Below is a report from the Karoo Times from a meeting POQ had in SA back in 2015...
Falcon, O’Quigley and Chevron
In his soft Irish lilt, O’Quigley told the crowd of around 90 people that although the exploration licence was sought by Falcon, the exploratory seismic testing would be conducted by Chevron, “should Chevron choose to take up the option”.
O’Quigley said he might sell the exploration licence on.
His words did not sit well with most of the audience.
Riled by the ‘House Rules’ and the threat of explosives on his land, one of the farmers received a loud round of applause when he said:
“You didn’t ask if it was all right to come here. You made up the rules. Who will give you permission to come on my land? I can give you the answer now. No, you may not enter!
“My gates are locked. And don’t come with any helicopters, because my shotgun will be loaded.”
Oleo: POQ has pushed this project from the start - In fact he chaired a group that tried to get the necessary political changes/regulations that would allow the project to move forward. From what I recall, the government wanted too big of a cut off the top to make the project viable. Also with the corrupt political system no company felt comfortable enough to invest huge amounts of money in the project that could easily be confiscated/nationalized by the government. As if that was not enough a company had to run their project with local help which made no sense.
There was a SA election two - three years ago - Falcon hoped it would change out leadership and improve the situation - instead the new group made things even worse. Maybe someday things will change but right now the majors are staying away from the Karoo Basin.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-05-20-gas-is-going-to-be-a-game-changer-in-the-economy-says-mantashe/
The minister strongly supports gas as a driver for the economy, stating: “If we are going to develop fully, we cannot write off and kill prospects of gas and oil development before it even starts.”
He said the Council for Geoscience had confirmed the verification of the Karoo shale gas samples that had been tested internationally, which meant that: “Shale gas deposits in the central Karoo are a reality and they are economical. Gas is going to be a game changer in the economy. And we appreciate the fact that even the EU now is labelling gas and nuclear as part of the green transition.”
Mantashe noted that the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Bill had been tabled to Parliament and that iGas, a subsidiary of the Central Energy Fund, had acquired an additional 40% ownership of the Rompco pipeline, which transports gas from Mozambique to South Africa.
A gas master plan was at an advanced stage of development, he said.