FIFI PETERS: Let’s speak about power issues now. My mom despatched me a WhatsApp a bit earlier, saying that there was load shedding the place we keep. I suppose it makes a dialog round power and power safety crucial at this juncture in our historical past, in our current day.
We have now for this dialog Dr Phindile Masangane. She is the CEO of the Petroleum Company South Africa on the Market Replace for extra on power, and extra particularly the Africa Power Outlook that was launched a bit earlier at the moment, the report for 2022. Dr Phindile, thanks a lot to your time. As a place to begin, your key takeaways from the report and what it means for the way South Africa ought to go forward?
Dr PHINDILE MASANGANE: Thanks Fifi, and thanks for inviting the Petroleum Company SA, generally referred to as Pasa, to your present. The important thing takeaway for us from this Africa Power Outlook is absolutely the theme that it has for Africa. They known as it ‘a decade of transformation’. Africa should shift gear. And they’re saying so from the premise that Africa has traditionally used most of its oil and gasoline to energy different areas, and due to this fact we had been exporting the oil and gasoline that we’re producing within the area, which undermined our financial improvement as a continent. That’s the reason they’re saying it’s time for Africa to shift gear and rework and meet up with transformation.
FIFI PETERS: It’s fairly attention-grabbing, as a result of what we have now seen just lately, ever since that Ukraine/Russia warfare broke out, is quite a lot of motion from international locations in Europe. I believe Germany involves thoughts – visiting the continent, signing potential future power offers and gasoline offers because it tries to scale back its relationship and its reliance on Russia. What do you make about that? Any considerations?
Dr PHINDILE MASANGANE: None in any respect as a result of for those who look, Fifi, on latest days there’ve been quite a lot of important [gas] discoveries within the African continent. The report mentions as much as 177 tcf [trillion cubic feet]. That’s enough for us to proceed with our exports, however we simply want to show round and guarantee that the first manufacturing is used for creating Africa. So we do nonetheless have the chance to export the oil and gasoline that we produce on the continent, whereas ensuring that we’re intentional about utilizing quite a lot of the produce for our financial improvement reindustrialisation.
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FIFI PETERS: Simply within the transition in direction of a greener, cleaner future, for many individuals, oil and gasoline shouldn’t be a part of that – or not?
Dr PHINDILE MASANGANE: And that’s precisely what the report demystifies, Fifi, as a result of I believe there’s a false impression. Typically I believe it’s deliberate that the usage of oil and gasoline just isn’t in keeping with that, just isn’t in keeping with a decarbonisation technique. So the report unpacks that.
For instance, I’m positive you might be conscious that greater than 600 million individuals on the African continent should not have entry to fashionable power applied sciences, notably electrical energy. And that’s why we’re termed the ‘darkish continent’. So what then do they use for his or her home power wants? A few of them use biomass, which results in deforestation. So in the event that they had been to make use of gasoline – whether or not it’s LPG or pure gasoline – for cooking or no matter type of gasoline, that in itself is decarbonisation, as a result of you then arrest the detrimental affect of deforestation.
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Secondly, in Africa, as we all know, we’re nonetheless very a lot on inside combustion engines. So we nonetheless use petrol and diesel.
Our uptake when it comes to electrical automobiles continues to be low. Now we’ve seen a pattern the place you employ heavy automobiles, you place the heavy automobiles on pure gasoline and that reduces your carbon emissions by greater than 30%.
Importantly, Fifi, you cut back all of your ‘socks and knocks’ [SO2 and NOx; sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides] in addition to your wonderful particulate matter, which truly are your air pollution, which soiled your rapid atmosphere.
So the usage of gasoline as a transport gasoline itself could be a decarbonisation technique. In order that’s why we are saying that gasoline is a thoughtful gasoline.
So the usage of oil and gasoline might be a part of the decarbonisation. I believe that folks give a false narrative that it can’t be a part of your decarbonisation technique – and this report places to relaxation that argument.
FIFI PETERS: Are you able to additionally simply, maybe lastly, give us a sign of the sort of expressions of curiosity to probe for gasoline in South Africa, and particularly since we have now seen massive firms attempting to take action, and being confronted with resistance from those that suppose that they’re not doing so responsibly for the neighborhood and the atmosphere, and all kinds of entanglements taking part in out in court docket. Has that sort of motion harm the curiosity and the attractiveness of exploring for gasoline in South Africa’s market?
Dr PHINDILE MASANGANE: It has raised severe considerations, however thankfully South Africa’s petroleum useful resource endowment is sort of wonderful. So we haven’t seen a ‘hurtful’ discouragement, however after all it does concern our traders.
On the optimistic facet the latest discovery is encouraging funding. You’ll know that we’ve obtained important finds on our south coast by Complete Power. They’ve found 3.6 tcf. Simply to place that into context to your listeners, you’ll know that PetroSA was constructed, was sustained over 20 years, by 1.3 tcf. Right here you might be in South Africa now having 3.6 tcf.
A second instance is the Renergen Tetra4 mission which, as you understand, is coming into industrial manufacturing in August this 12 months, a mere 4 months away.
That can put South Africa on the map when it comes to exporting helium. So there pure gasoline once we extracted it has fairly a excessive focus of helium, and so they’re liquifying that and exporting it. On the similar time, they may produce power within the nation.
So these are attracting tasks within the nation, despite the detrimental actions that you just’ve seen as effectively.
FIFI PETERS: Good to know, Dr Phindile. Thanks a lot for becoming a member of the Market Replace and demystifying a number of the views on the market, notably pertaining to gasoline for us. Dr Phindile Masangane, the CEO of Petroleum Company SA.
