End of fracking in the Karoo

from Daily News: 

The pulling out of global oil and gas companies in the Karoo was “encouraging”, the Treasure Karoo Action Group (TKAG) said on Sunday.

The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that the Royal Dutch Shell was prepared to pack up shop after encountering difficulties with obtaining licences for the shale gas exploration.

It said the company was already moving its top engineers to other countries and said the company would have spent at least R2.5 billion.

TKAG chief executive, Jonathan Deal, said that the oil and gas global companies were shifting their attention elsewhere for gas exploration and it was “encouraging”.

“It’s high time that the negative aspects around shale gas as a technology came home to roost. TKAG has warned since February 2011 that shale gas does not produce the numbers of jobs claimed by the oil and gas lobby,” he said.

Deal said the jobs that were created were highly specialised and unsustainable and warned that shale gas depleted quickly.

“Global estimates of shale gas reserves have been routinely overstated by US agencies and this misinformation has been perpetuated by the likes of Shell,” he said.

Deal said the pulling out was encouraging as it would have led to large-scale environmental pollution – including pollution of groundwater sources – which he claimed would have been hidden from the public through non-disclosure agreements with the oil firm executives.

“The South African government has foolishly touted fracking as an economic game changer in the face of solid alternative evidence that establishes a case for application of great caution in such a decision.

“In the past four months, we have seen confirmation of fracking being banned or at the least placed under extended moratoria in two Canadian provinces, Algeria, Scotland, Wales and New York State.

“Even in Shell’s home country, the Netherlands, fracking is under moratorium until 2017. This brings close to 150 the number of places where the technology is under attack,” Deal said.

He argued that community health and water would be at risk and said fracking would pose a threat to sustainable jobs in agriculture and tourism.

“Its economic benefits are increasingly being questioned by economists and international leaders. And it has been blamed for delaying the vital roll-out of renewable energy while governments have swallowed the marketing hype of the global oil and gas giants,” Deal said.

Even though the current situation in South Africa may have arisen through both the government’s mishandling of this issue and the drop in global oil prices, fracking would eventually be exposed as a bridge to nowhere for global communities, he said.

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