TotalEnergies’ offshore drilling plans in South Africa has been given the go ahead. This comes after the country’s environment minister, Barbara Creecy, dismissed an appeal against the firm’s plans.
The drilling plans are focused on Block 5/6/7, situated between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas in South Africa’s southwest coast and the firm intends to drill up to five offshore wells in this block to explore for oil and natural gas.
Lifted appeal
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy in South Africa had granted environmental authorization for TotalEnergies and its partners to proceed with drilling in this block.However, various lobby groups and individuals had appealed the decision, raising concerns related to climate change, potential oil spills, and a perceived lack of adequate public consultation.
Minister Creecy, as the appellate authority, reviewed the appeals and concluded that the impacts of noise and light had been adequately assessed and mitigated to minimize harm to the environment. As a result, she dismissed the appeal.
South Africa is one of TotalEnergies’ targeted frontier exploration areas offshore Africa. The company is also active offshore Namibia, where it has made significant discoveries alongside Shell. Analysts suggest that offshore Namibia holds significant potential for oil and gas exploration and could become an important area for the industry, similar to Guyana.
TotalEnergies made a substantial discovery of light oil with associated gas in Namibia’s Orange Basin, particularly on the Venus prospect. The discoveries in deepwater offshore Namibia, including Shell’s Graff and TotalEnergies’ Venus, are seen as potentially transformative for the country, which is situated adjacent to OPEC member Angola.