Gas? A transition to wasted infrastructure

Imade my own trap last week when I read a tweet reporting that Johann Rupert had said at the Remgro AGM that green (renewable) energy was “not enough” for SA right now.

I replied: “All very well for @cutmaker to say that but Remgro’s invested heavily in fossil fuels in SA. If he really thinks gas is a good idea he should stop opposing fracking in the Karoo. TotalEnergies will soon start surveying for gas off Hermanus. The whales approve. Lovely...”

I was wrong. Remgro is invested in Total SA, the downstream local affiliate of the French oil giant. And its stake is up for sale. TotalEnergies, the French parent, is applying for a licence to drill for gas near the environmentally sensitive whale sanctuaries around Hermanus and towards Mossel Bay.

After Rupert pointed out my error I found this open letter to two NGOs, one French and one South African, from the chair and CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, dated November 22.

“I can confirm that TotalEnergies SA and its partners applied for a production licence on September 5,” he wrote. “I would also like to stress that TotalEnergies SA has already voluntarily reduced the scope of the licence application by excluding the area now classified by the SA authorities as a protected marine area.’

“Concerning the project s contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, I would emphasise that this project is expected to supply gas to the SA domestic market. SA’s economy is still predominantly based on coal ... Access to energy, and in particular meeting the growing demand for electricity, is a major concern in SA ... The atmosphere will benefit from the avoided emissions made possible by this gas development project.

“In SA, TotalEnergies is positioning itself in accordance with public policy to contribute to the evolution of the country ’ s energy mix as part of a just transition that will require a move away from coal, a sharp increase in renewable energies, and the use of gas as a transition fuel.”

I love the “avoided emissions” and the sacrifice implied in “voluntarily reduced the scope...” What was that message the Ukrainian platoon on Snake Island in the Black Sea replied when the Russian warship told them to evacuate?

But the letter hides a deep problem. There is no official policy declaring gas to be a “transition fuel” here, but there is a barely hidden, powerful lobby for swapping out coal for gas on the road to arriving at our promised net carbon zero goal by 2050. It is pushed by energy minister Gwede

Mantashe, while his boss holds out the begging bowl at climate conferences, and it is also pushed by big liquefied natural gas (LNG) users like Sasol.

Total must think it is part of this quiet, elite compact. It has found significant gas deposits at Brulpadda and Luiperd off Mossel Bay.

Sadly, there’s no real gas plan, and there’s certainly no agreement that taxpayers should fork out for new power infrastructure that will quickly be left stranded, almost as it is built, by advances in renewable technology.

What private companies like Sasol do is their business, I suppose, but if Sasol is to secure a reliable supply of LNG someone here will need to become an anchor tenant big enough to warrant the construction of new ports and pipelines. The Mantashe delusion is that Eskom becomes the anchor. At stage 6 loadshedding almost any alternative looks attractive, but we cannot afford to make poor decisions under pressure.

And we should not be patronised by Pouyanné, nor soft-soaped by big domestic business. Our big future economic and industrial opportunity is transitioning to a zero-carbon economy, and exporting zero-carbon minerals and goods to rich markets where the SA footprint commands huge premiums.

Even if Pouyanné got his way, none of the gas from our oceans would switch a light bulb on here for a decade, such is the scale of the infrastructure required. And the case for gas for power is quickly diminishing.

“Independent analysis of the power sector across multiple recent studies shows that SA’s power needs can be met both now and in the future with very little use of gas,” the wellregarded advisory group Meridian Economics wrote in June. “All studies show that the overwhelming majority of new generation capacity should be wind and solar, with an increasing requirement for flexible (dispatchable) capacity to support this.”

That “flexible” is where some gas may find a home. Outside Mossel Bay, Eskom operates its Gourikwa diesel peaking plant, intended for use only in emergencies but now generating power full-on when there is diesel in the tanks. Right next to it is PetroSA’s gas to liquids refinery. It could, in theory, make the diesel Gourikwa burns, but the refinery is closed. Incompetent management and corruption have rendered PetroSA little more than a fuels trader.

But that’s basically it for gas in the power sector. Extreme emergencies only. So let’s make TotalEnergies and its chair aware that we are not some faraway postulant pushover. They’ve got enough gas out of our oceans now and don’t need this new drill. And if they can one day supply the little gas we need at a competitive price, we’ll take it. Otherwise, don’t you dare make even the tiniest mess off our shores.

THERE IS A POWERFUL LOBBY FOR SWAPPING OUT COAL FOR GAS ON THE ROAD TO ARRIVING AT OUR NET CARBON ZERO GOAL

LET’S MAKE TOTALENERGIES AND ITS CHAIR AWARE THAT WE ARE NOT SOME FARAWAY POSTULANT PUSHOVER