Farmers fear possibility of fracking in province
ATEXAS-based petroleum exploration company has announced plans to hunt for gas and oil in a vast swathe of central KwaZuluNatal farming land stretching from Richmond in the south to Nkandla in the north.
The Rhino Oil and Gas exploration covers nearly 10 000 farms or about 16% of the surface area of KwaZulu-Natal.
Although the company carefully avoids any mention of “fracking” in the exploration phase, Rhino environmental consultant Matthew Hemming confirmed that hydraulic rock fracturing (fracking) could not be ruled out if the company found commercial reserves of gas, methane or helium.
Fracking is a term that describes the artificial fracturing and shattering of underground rock to extract methane and other gases by pumping a highpressure mixture of water, toxic chemicals and sand up to 6km below ground level.
Towns falling within or just on the border of the exploration area include Pietermaritzburg, Mooi River, Estcourt, Greytown, Ladysmith, Ulundi, Nkandla, Dundee, Richmond and Camperdown.
Farmers union KwaNalu said the potential impacts of fracking on the province’s natural resources and productive agricultural land were “extremely worrying”.
Sandy la Marque, the union chief executive, said: “While we face pressures of high unemployment, food insecurity and shrinking agricultural land, fracking will not provide any solution to these challenges but will exacerbate the situation.”
Vagueness
The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry did not respond to requests for comment, while a spokesman for Mike Mabuyakhulu, the provincial MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, said: “We think at this stage, it is prudent for all of us to wait for all the processes to run their course.”
Bobby Peek, the director of the environmental justice group, groundWork, said he was disturbed by the “vagueness” of information provided by Rhino Resources. “There is an element of sleight-of-hand. They are deliberately avoiding talking about fracking and don’t seem to be putting all their cards on the table,” he said.
Judy Bell, a Pietermaritzburgenvironmental consultant and member of the Midlands Conservancies Forum, said: “Most people associate fracking with the distant Karoo and never thought it would happen in KwaZuluNatal. Well, here they are now, it seems.”
Rhino Resources said the initial three-year exploration phase would be restricted to “non-invasive techniques” such as seismic surveys and drilling of about 10 core sample boreholes. A series of public meetings in Ashburton, Richmond, Lions River, Colenso, Mooi River, New Hanover, Greytown and Nkandla will be held from November 2-7 to outline more details.
Two years ago, a senior groundwater expert, Professor Gerrit van Tonder, warned that large-scale gas fracking could have “devastating” pollution impacts on the country’s priceless pool of clean underground drinking water.
Van Tonder, who died last year, said it could take less than two months for contaminated “fracking fluids” and other pollution to contaminate boreholes, or just a matter of days to reach the surface in parts of the Karoo. Two months ago, the anti-fracking Treasure the Karoo Action group called on the government to reinstate the moratorium on gas exploration and production until two scientific reports were finalised by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Academy of Science of South Africa.
A previous 14-month moratorium was lifted by the cabinet in 2012 amid declarations by President Jacob Zuma that fracking could be a “game changer” for the South African economy. Several companies including Shell, Bundu, Falcon, Sasol, Anglo and Sungu Sungu have requested exploration licences in six of the nine provinces.
Elsewhere in KwaZuluNatal, Rhino has a technical cooperation permit that could lead to exploration of an even larger section of land from Lake St Lucia to the Mozambique border. The Sungu Sungu group has similar interests in the northern section of the water-rich Drakensberg mountains, while Motuoane Energy has exploration interests just south of Newcastle.
For more information, contact Matthew Hemming at 011 467 0945 or e-mail mhemming@slrconsulting.com