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The process and timing surrounding the current round of applications for gas exploration rights have exposed a number of material issues that reinforce the DA’s call in February for a moratorium on the granting of these rights.
In the first instance, it must be acknowledged that dealing with applications for onshore gas exploration is new to the Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA), which is the designated authority tasked to make recommendations to the Minister of Mineral Resources on whether particular applications should be granted or not. This small agency, with a miniscule staff and possessing a budget which, by its own admission, will not see it adequately through the next two years, is not in a position to make a considered decision on applications that to date cover a landmass of South Africa in excess of 200 000 square kilometres. For this reason, and others, some of which are mentioned below, the DA will today write to the Minister of Mineral Resources requesting her not to approve any rights at this time.
By the Minister’s own acknowledgement, in a reply to a DA parliamentary question last year, there is no policy on hyrdraulic fracturing, also referred to as “fracking”, in South Africa. The Mineral and Petroleum Resource Development Act (MPRDA) provides in general terms for an applicant to demonstrate its technical ability to conduct exploration in line with best industry practice. PASA is tasked with ensuring that operators have the required means, skills and understanding of any exploration activity. These provisions set off a number of alarm bells. PASA has no experience of regulating “fracking” nor does it have the environmental compliance officers who are required to monitor the process if deployed.
Fracking is a highly sophisticated process involving millions of litres of water per fracking event and a toxic cocktail of fracking fluids. It has the potential to pollute water courses if mistakes occur, and poses significant challenges for effective waste management. The proposed processes are new to South Africa, and we cannot afford to rush into approving them. While thousands of wells have been fracked around the world, most notably in the USA, our country would be ill advised not to note the concerns that have been raised elsewhere in the world. Pollution incidents can and do happen. The Minister simply cannot ignore that the Environmental Protection Agency in the USA is currently studying the possible negative relationship between fracking and drinking water quality, after the US Congress mandated it to do so last year. The study is only due for completion in two or three years’ time.
But despite the genuine concerns that thousands of stakeholders in South Africa have, and which should be considered by PASA when reviewing the submitted Environmental Management Plans of applicants for exploration rights, PASA already appears biased in favour of the process of “fracking”. At a portfolio meeting in Parliament on 16 March 2011, a staff member of PASA attempted to play down the known impacts of “fracking”, arguing they could be mitigated. This suggests PASA may already have made up its mind about the suitability of “fracking” before it has even officially begun to apply its mind to submitted environmental management plans. This may be a material defect in the process, and I will be drawing the Minister’s attention to the comments made at that meeting.
While the process of deciding on onshore applications for gas exploration is new to PASA, it is equally new to the consultants working for applicants and to the interested and affected parties participating in the prescribed processes of public consultation, as mandated by the MPRDA. Applications for gas exploration rights are in practice fundamentally different from applications for prospecting and mining rights. Mining applications are relatively contained in terms of the areas they impact, usually only a handful of portions of land at most, and the consultation can (in most cases) be done within the prescribed time frames. But with gas exploration, the applications cover tens of thousands of square kilometres without any information being provided on the proposed drilling sites. In approving any application PASA becomes the de facto land use arbiter of these extensive areas, with implications for the democratically approved Integrated Development Plans of affected municipalities. In effect, the spatial planning framework for South Africa yet to be released by the National Planning Commission is rendered useless.
Notwithstanding the problems associated with interested and affected parties understanding the proposed fracking processes, the massive extent of land under application and the very narrow time frame for consultation suggests that the process cannot be done fairly and meaningfully. Even the consultants working on the Shell applications have admitted that they feel rushed by the time frames.
There is no need to rush the approval of gas exploration rights, and there are many substantial reasons to suggest that the processes currently underway are unfair, flawed, and will have unintended consequences.