Cape Town - Cape Town can join its World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP) partners and become a major oil and gas capital - resulting in the creation of much-needed jobs.
This will happen when there is a commitment and investment to exploit the Western Cape’s abundant alternative energy sources.
Cape Town is the newest member of the WECP and one of only two African countries alongside Angola.
Thirteen of the WECP’s 19 member cities are gathered in the city to share their expertise.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting yesterday, mayor Patricia de Lille said it was time Capetonians benefited from lower electricity costs and accessed alternative energy sources, such as renewables.
“The time for gas and renewables has come,” she said.
The City of Cape Town wants Cape Town to obtain at least 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, but the city is not permitted to buy directly from independent producers.
The Western Cape was excluded from the national government’s recent announcement on its gas-to-power independent power producer (IPP) programme. But Department of Energy deputy director-general Tseliso Maqubela said Saldanha Bay was still a consideration.
“Sometimes the best projects come in round two,” he said.
De Lille said Cape Town was well positioned to service oil and gas projects around Africa.
SA Oil and Gas Alliance chairman Mthozami Xiphu agreed: “There’s no doubt that Cape Town has the potential for growth in the oil and gas sector.”
Despite the low oil price, fears over amended legislation, the strong environmental aversion to fracking and the high costs involved in deep sea exploration, delegates said there was still a lot of investment in the industry.
Iain Pitt, chief executive of the Oil and Gas Council, an international investor organisation based in Cape Town, said it did not share the same narrative as the rest of South Africa and was still attractive to investors.
Cape Town is taking advice from cities like Perth in Australia and Stavanger in Norway.
Perth has the largest concentration of oil and gas companies in Australia, while Stavanger has been at the forefront of oil and gas exploration in Norway for more than 50 years.
“The world needs energy, but the future is very near,” said Stavanger mayor Christine Sagen Helgo.
WECP chairman and mayor of Halifax, Mike Savage, said cities had to become advocates for and marketers of the oil and gas industry. “Cities have a key role to play. Cities rule the world. Some just don’t realise it yet.”
Maqubela said a government decision on a new refinery for the country was “imminent”.
But existing infrastructure could not go to waste and no refinery should be allowed to close.
“It is not enough to have a refinery in Cape Town; there is a need for an in-port facility too,” he said.
The Trade and Industry Department’s head of Oil and Gas, Kishan Pillay, said the government’s focus was on how to leverage oil and gas resources for the region and onshore: “For too long resources have been extracted, but the continent has not benefited.”
PetroSA’s evaluation manager, David van der Spuy, said a new fuel terminal and storage and distribution facilities in the Cape Town port would enhance the city’s oil and gas midstream activities.
The agency, he said, was also “very close” to making recommendations on shale gas applications.
Objections to the applications were being reviewed by an environmental committee. However, a moratorium on new applications remained in place.
CAPE ARGUS