Oil Giants Eye South African Coasts as Fuel, Climate Crises Merge
French energy giant Total Energies is preparing to submit its final application for approval to drill up to five wells for oil or gas between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas, writes Liezl Human for GroundUp.
The application is one in a rush of offshore oil and gas applications along South Africa's coast.
This is part of a wider expansion by multinational companies into Africa, as a recent report by environmental research group Urgewald, in partnership with dozens of organisations in Africa and Europe, shows.Total Energies faces additional scrutiny over the multibillion euro East African crude oil pipeline project which it has funded together with the China National Offshore Company (CNOC). The pipeline's development gained new significance following the Russian-Ukranian War.
Russia's invasion prompted moves by many countries to reduce their dependence on imports of Russian oil and gas. These shifts, combined with western oil and gas companies dumping their Russian interests, present an opportunity to other petroleum-producing countries, albeit one tempered by actions to address the climate crisis. This has led governments and commentators to discuss African producers as potential beneficiaries of Europe's supply gap, with talk of a "seismic shift" to Africa and of the continent as "Europe's next gas station".
Story from AllAfrica