{"id":242470,"date":"2022-11-09T18:38:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T16:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/companies-are-rushing-to-explore-offshore-oil-and-gas\/"},"modified":"2022-11-09T18:38:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T16:38:53","slug":"companies-are-rushing-to-explore-offshore-oil-and-gas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/companies-are-rushing-to-explore-offshore-oil-and-gas\/","title":{"rendered":"Companies are rushing to explore offshore oil and gas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This map shows the oil and gas projects on South Africa\u2019s coast that The Green Connection is concerned about.<\/p>\n

Environmental activist organisation The Green Connection is appealing to the presidency and government to ban all offshore oil and gas exploration amidst a sudden rush of applications for exploration rights.<\/p>\n

Offshore oil and gas applications are currently \u201cexpanding and intensifying\u201d, according to Adrian Pole, legal consultant for The Green Connection, who was speaking during a media briefing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The organisation has launched a petition<\/a> to stop offshore oil and gas exploration in the ocean. Instead it wants the development of renewable energy solutions, which has been signed by just over 4,000 people.<\/p>\n

During the media briefing, The Green Connection gave updates on some of the exploration and other projects it is opposing. These include Searcher\u2019s applications to conduct seismic surveys on the south west coast, Karpowership\u2019s attempts to get permission for floating gas powerships, drilling from the Azinam oil rig off the Northern Cape, and TotalEnergies\u2019s application for environmental authorisation of exploration off the southern coast.<\/p>\n

Azinam is already drilling. Both TotalEnergies and Karpowership are holding public meetings this month as part of the consultation process they have to go through.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our perspective, oil and gas is not part of a just transition <\/a>\u2026 alternatives are there and we don\u2019t have to drill our oceans,\u201d said Liziwe McDaid, The Green Connection\u2019s strategic lead. She said that the South African government should be moving away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

McDaid said these projects were risking the livelihoods of coastal communities \u201cwho depend on a healthy ocean\u201d and who felt voiceless faced with the growing number of companies applying for exploration rights.<\/p>\n

Neville van Rooy, The Green Connection\u2019s community outreach coordinator, said oil and gas projects disrupted local economies and communities\u2019 access to food.<\/p>\n

During the briefing, McDaid also raised a concern that the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe hasn\u2019t finalised the Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) as required by the National Energy Act. This plan is designed to guide energy infrastructure investment.<\/p>\n

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy had not responded to GroundUp\u2019s queries at the time of publication.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This map shows the oil and gas projects on South Africa\u2019s coast that The Green Connection is concerned about. Environmental activist organisation The Green Connection is appealing to the presidency and government to ban all offshore oil and gas exploration amidst a sudden rush of applications for exploration rights. Offshore oil and gas applications are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-242470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/companies-are-rushing-to-explore-offshore-oil-and-gas.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}