Durban - An Australian company has announced plans to search for gas in KwaZulu-Natal, this time in the Utrecht area near Newcastle.
The latest application, involving more than 1 400 farms in two provinces, coincided with the start of the three-day Frack Free Festival in Matatiele yesterday.
The festival is part of a civil society campaign to oppose any fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in South Africa.
The Perth-based Kinetiko Energy group has lodged an application to dig up to six exploratory wells in northern KwaZulu-Natal and southern Mpumalanga in an exploration zone encompassing 1 466 farms totalling 382 000ha.
Wells
The company’s local subsidiary, Afro Energy, says its work will not include any fracking during the exploration phase, though it has ambitions to become an “early mover” in coal bed methane (CBM) gas exploration and commercialisation.
A background report from Afro Energy’s environmental consultants says the company hopes to get approval to dig between three and six exploratory wells and conduct an aero-magnetic survey.
The core drilling operation could involve digging down to depths of up to 800m.
Four public meetings have been scheduled for next week, with the first meeting at the Utrecht town hall on October 12.
Civil society groups opposed to fracking and other unconventional methods of gas exploration are expected to object strongly to the application.
Last month, consultants acting for the Texas-based Rhino Oil and Gas group acknowledged that there had been an overwhelming “near-unanimous” public opposition to its proposals to explore for gas in KZN.
Reacting to the latest exploration proposals, the national FrackFreeSA campaign said: “It is important to note that mining is already responsible for the disruption of the social fabric of communities and towns across South Africa and no area is able to claim to be better off as a result of mining.”
The campaign leaders said they were concerned that exploration would lead inevitably to gas drilling in several parts of the country.
“The impact of the extraction of oil and gas cannot be mitigated, as all communities in other countries have come to understand. There are a few countries that have banned fracking at the outset; others have quickly learnt and have subsequently done so.”
They said the states of New York and Maryland in the US passed statewide moratoriums on fracking earlier this year, while Scotland had halted fracking projects nationwide, joining Ireland, the Netherlands, and France on the list of countries in which this method of fossil fuel extraction was banned.
The campaign is hosting a three-day FrackFreeFest, which started in Matatiele yesterday, to inform rural communities on the likely impact of unconventional gas extraction on water supply and livelihoods. The gathering will be attended by traditional authorities and government officials.
THE MERCURY