Lunch'n Think Webinar: How can we responsibly source more gas in Southern Africa?

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FEATURED SPEAKERS

David Bamford
» Director
» Future Energy Partners Ltd

Greg Coleman
»
» Future Energy Partners Ltd

John McCarthy
» head of research
» Minerva SRM

Full Agenda

Friday, May 21, 2021
Webinar
Online

How can we responsibly source more gas in Southern Africa? This webinar looks at potential for new gas production onshore, ways future projects should be approached, and how to keep local communities engaged. Structure - 3 x 10 min presentations followed by discussion.

ONSHORE GAS EXPLORATION

The Karoo formations onshore in Southern Africa, stretching across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia, are believed to hold 30 to 390 TCF in South Africa alone. In addition, there are large amounts of coal bed methane. How can this be produced responsibly? - David Bamford

RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION

How should future oil and gas development projects in Southern Africa keep both development costs down and eliminate Co2 / CH4 emissions and flaring? What are the best approaches to remote operations, electrification, eliminating emissions and embracing CCS? - Greg Coleman

LOCAL COMMUNITIES

How do we achieve a "Just Energy Transition" - ensuring local communities are not adversely disrupted and benefit from the developments? - John McCarthy


Webinar introduction from David Bamford:

What do we mean by Responsibly Sourced Gas?

1. A question that we need to examine carefully is whether the US ‘shale gale’ can be exported to other countries.

Back in 2013 the US EIA assessed 137 shale formations (in 95 basins) in 41 countries outside the USA where significant volumes of shale gas resources might be found. Essentially this was a ‘bottom up’ exercise collating large amounts of reported data but if you look at the list, it almost entirely confirms a now known ‘top down’ truth – that prolific oil or gas shales had already fed a major conventional oil or gas province. So unsurprisingly the US, Russia, Algeria, China figured in the ‘top 10’ countries for technically recoverable shale gas.

But….. there are some ‘frontier’ regions and countries in the list, mainly of a smaller scale and so further down the ranking. However, Southern Africa contains one ‘top 10’ potential resource sequence, the Karoo, which is believed to hold 30 -390 Tcf in South Africa alone (and the Karoo formations stretch into Namibia, Botswana and Zambia).

Note however the Petroleum Agency of South Africa comments on the lack of geophysical and geochemical data!

In addition, in South Africa, Coal Bed Methane is well known from its occurrence in underground coal mining, where it presents a serious safety risk.
The coal deposits in South Africa are found within the Karoo basin and fault bounded rift basins further north. These basins are host to large volumes of coal and where the coal is concentrated with methane gas, this holds potential for significant future sources of energy.

David Bamford of Future Energy Partners will consider the ‘realities’ of unconventional gas in the Karoo from Namibia and Zambia and into South Africa.

2. Any future oil & gas development, anywhere in the world and whether offshore or onshore, faces the twin challenges of:

• Being at the front of the cost curve so that it is viable at foreseen oil or gas prices

and

• Being low or even zero carbon by eliminating both CO2 and CH4 emissions, and flaring.

Gas discoveries offshore Southern Africa are not excused from this expectation!

Technology supplies the means to achieve these two seemingly contradictory objectives.

For example, offshore developments themselves need to have embraced Remote Operations, Electrification (eliminating CO₂), and elimination of ‘cold venting’ and ‘fugitive’ emissions. Use of the gas onshore for Gas-to-Power needs to embrace Carbon Capture & Storage.

Greg Coleman of Future Energy Partners will outline such cost-leading ‘decarbonising’ developments.

3. Much of what is being discussed in this ‘Southern Africa’ series of Webinars relates to the various sources of energy that may be deployed to effect what might be termed a Just Energy Transition – which might be defined as an Energy Transition that leaves nobody behind. On the one hand, this is about relieving the widespread ‘energy poverty’ in the region but on the other that, as onshore activities proliferate – for solar, offshore wind, geothermal and unconventional gas projects – local communities are not adversely impacted, disrupted, even ‘moved out’.

It is a common observation that most companies fail to demonstrate how their corporate-level management standards are translated into actions and engagement on the ground, where it matters to society, to the local population. Often there is a striking mismatch between corporate-level commitments and systems on the one hand and project/operational-level action on the other, on issues of primary importance to the region. Think RTZ!!

Rob Palfrey of Minerva SRM - which provides bespoke social risk management services to companies operating in the most challenging social, political and conflict-affected settings – will address this topic.

Agenda