The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes Minister Shabangu’s extension of the moratorium on prospecting for shale gas for a further six months. By doing so she has acknowledged that there are various aspects surrounding the legislative framework, processes and the method of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that need further investigation. Importantly, she has committed her Department to consulting the public outside of the legislated application processes that applicants are expected to follow. This is something that the DA has long advocated for, and this is the first time the Minister has acknowledged it is necessary.
The Minister’s initial deadline of having a report ready for cabinet by the end of July was always pure folly. Longer study was always going to take time. While the Minister has now stated that the complete report of the task team will be submitted in September, the problem remains that we do not know what the terms of reference for the study are. The DA can articulate its problem statement as to why a moratorium was necessary, but government has never told the public what its terms of reference are. The terms of reference should indicate the length of the study. The Minister therefore needs to reveal what exactly the task team is studying.
The DA will not rule out entirely any potential energy source. Shale gas may have a role to play in our energy future, we are however supportive of further study on fracking. We are thoughtful about the needs of a growing economy, and are supportive of a diverse energy mix. But hydraulic fracturing is new to South Africa. We should not simply ignore the concerns that the public in other parts of the world have expressed over the process, nor should we ignore the concerns of many of our own people. If South Africa can satisfy itself that the controls and legislative processes around gas exploration applications are strong, and if we know the Department of Mineral Resources has the capacity to perform strong compliance and enforcement, and is prepared to protect affected communities, then we are in a position to debate whether the risks are worth the reward. At the moment the Department of Mineral Resources lacks a record that suggests it has the desire or capacity to do its job adequately.
For the record, the DA has the following principle concerns that we believe should be key to further study on hydraulic fracturing. We provided these concerns to the Minister in writing several months ago.
Firstly, we believe that the scale of application areas and the legislative process related thereto need further work. Mining applications, as opposed to gas exploration applications, are relatively contained in terms of the areas they impact upon, 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, as is the current experience, the sizes of applications cover tens of thousands of square kilometres without any information provided at the application stage on the actual proposed drilling sites. In recommending in favour of any application, Petroleum Agency SA (PASA) becomes the de facto land use arbiter of these extensive areas, with implications for the democratically approved Integrated Development Plans of affected municipalities. It further renders useless the spatial planning framework for South Africa yet to be released by the National Planning Commission. In addition, these exploration rights can have fundamentally negative impacts on the value of land in the exploration areas. Because land owners do not know where the drill sites will be, as these will only be identified after the granting of rights to applicants, thousands of individual land owners will live in constant fear that their land could be the next drilling site. As exploration rights are awarded for three years, with the option to renew for up to a further six years thereafter, land owners could be held in perpetual limbo, affecting their abilities to easily dispose of land or to develop it as they see fit.
Secondly, the DA is concerned with government’s ability to effectively regulate fracking. PASA has no experience of regulating fracking. While applicants are at pains to point out that they will report any pollution events if they occur and will remediate affected areas, the Department of Mineral Resources’ record of defending the public interest against mines that deviate from their environmental management plans is exceptionally weak. The Minister refused in a reply to a parliamentary question last year to divulge details of actions taken by her Department against mines with environmental transgressions. So how can the public be assured that our government will monitor and enforce the law if fracking occurs? Dealing with applications for onshore gas exploration is new to PASA. This small agency, with a small staff is not yet 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. They will need to convince us otherwise.