South Africa (SA) will lift a long-standing moratorium on shale gas exploration as soon as new regulations, expected this month, are published, the petroleum resources Minister said this Thursday.<\/p>\n
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A ban imposed in 2011 stopped the regulator from processing new applications for reconnaissance permits, as well as exploration and production rights in response to a public outcry and court action by environmental campaigners concerned about the impact of hydraulic fracking in the ecologically sensitive Karoo region.<\/p>\n
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Earlier on Thursday a post-cabinet statement said the country’s environment minister had finalised shale gas regulations and they would be published before the end of October.<\/p>\n
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“Once those regulations are gazetted, I lift the moratorium,” Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe told Reuters<\/em>. “The economy needs a growth trigger and oil and gas are those triggers.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SA favours gas as it attempts to shift from more polluting coal-fired plants that supply the bulk of its electricity requirements.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The regulations on shale gas will provide a framework to control environmental and safety concerns, including water challenges, associated with fracking in the semi-arid Karoo region.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SA, the continent’s most advanced economy, relies on piped gas from Mozambique to supply industrial users and needs new supplies as those fields are depleted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The country’s first liquefied natural gas import terminal is being developed at Richards Bay.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Petroleum Agency of SA estimates the Karoo Basin holds around 209 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas resources.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, a 2017 study by geologists at University of Johannesburg said the amount ranged between 13 tcf and 390 tcf and was probably close to the lower end of that range.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13008,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-13007","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"South Africa (SA) will lift a long-standing moratorium on shale gas exploration||South Africa (SA) will lift a long-standing moratorium on shale gas exploration","published_date":"2025-10-16 18:43:07||2025-10-16 18:43:07","news_description":"South Africa (SA) will lift a long-standing moratorium on shale gas exploration||South Africa (SA) will lift a long-standing moratorium on shale gas exploration","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18332,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13007\/revisions\/18332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}