18 October 2010

The proposed Mthombo crude oil refinery will help South Africa escape from the "dependency trap" of having to import refined automotive products, ultimately saving the country billions of rands, says President Jacob Zuma.

At the same time, the refinery, to be built at the Coega Industrial Development Zone near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, would showcase South Africa's competitive ability to its counterparts globally.

Construction on the refinery, which will be the biggest in Africa, is expected to start in 2012, which would bring the refinery on stream by 2015.

The US$11-billion refinery, which would have a 400 000 barrel a day capacity, is meant to ensure security of fuel supply in South Africa. The country is currently dependent on international oil companies to provide for its liquid fuel energy needs.

"With Project Mthombo, this country stands to save an estimated R12.6-billion a year in energy costs once the refinery is running, and could export oil across Africa," Zuma said last week.

Zuma was speaking during a visit to PetroSA's gas-to-liquid refinery in Mossel Bay in the Western Cape. The visit by Zuma and Energy Minister Dipuo Peters was to obtain a first-hand account of PetroSA's operations, his office said.

"We welcome the fact that PetroSA is making its impact, not only in job creation but in empowering the people as well. It employs close to 2 000 people, while 27 500 more will be absorbed within the crude oil refinery that is planned," Zuma said.

Zuma welcomed the impressive growth of PetroSA following its successful merger of Mossgas, Soekor and parts of the Strategic Fuel Fund in 2002.

PetroSA is reaching markets in Europe, the United States, Caribbean, Middle East and Far East, which Zuma said was an important achievement.

He also commended the National Oil Company for the role it was playing in reducing the country's dependence on imported refined

South Africa has the second largest refining capacity in Africa at 692,000 bbl/d according to a 2008 SAPIA report, surpassed only by Egypt (726,250 – O&GJ). Major refineries include Sapref (180,000 bbl/d) and Enref (125,000 bbl/d) in Durban, Calref (100,000 bbl/d) in Cape Town, and Natref (108,000 bbl/d) at Sasolburg. PetroSA is also developing a new 400,000 bbl/d refinery in the Eastern Cape to meet rapidly growing product demand.

And we don't even have oil in our shores.

RSA I can here my echo in here. What's with the emptyness in this room.

Anyway howdy my brother lekker skaars?

I guess it is becoming boring,same old ishh all the time.

Me and some of my friends decided to support Henry Okah during his court hearings,we will be picketing outside Joburg high court with placards declaring our support for people of Niger Delta.We would start with a group of ten and I hope that it will grow and attract media attentions.

Niger Deltans need our support SA LADY,and with our little knowledge on Nigeria 's politics we learned from Nairaland,I feel that we must play our role as South Africans in helping Niger Delta people attain their freedom and independence.

The spirit of Ken Sara Wiwa will be with us.

^^^Send me more info I might just pitch up, sounds like something I wouldnt mind spending my time on. m out for now till tomorrow then.

Good for us. God bless South Africa

SA Lady:

RSA I can here my echo in here. What's with the emptyness in this room.

Anyway howdy my brother lekker skaars?

are we supposed to be jealous of south africa's sucess?  this is news that should be celebrated without bringing some silly rivalry to it.

i think you south african posters on NL have an inferiority complex.   what part of we don't wish SA evil don't you guys understand.

RSA:



I guess it is becoming boring,same old ishh all the time.

Me and some of my friends decided to support Henry Okah during his court hearings,we will be picketing outside Joburg high court with placards declaring our support for people of Niger Delta.We would start with a group of ten and I hope that it will grow and attract media attentions.

Niger Deltans need our support SA LADY,and with our little knowledge on Nigeria 's politics we learned from Nairaland,I feel that we must play our role as South Africans in helping Niger Delta people attain their freedom and independence.

The spirit of Ken Sara Wiwa will be with us.

you might want to read some more on the niger delta issue. posters like ibime should be willing to help you.
don't be an assshole who supports an arms dealer and oil bunker.

bawomolo:

are we supposed to be jealous of south africa's sucess?  this is news that should be celebrated without bringing some silly rivalry to it.

You should learn to mind your own business. I think you are a bit ahead of yourself here, please slow your roll.

bawomolo:


i think you south african posters on NL have an inferiority complex.   

I think we have long asserted ourselves in here and made it clear how we see ourselves and what we seek in here,  so your comment is a bit too late

bawomolo:

what part of we don't wish SA evil don't you guys understand.

Irrelevant in as far as the topic is concerned RSA and most SA forumites have long mentioned that they are in here to share and exchange info.

bawomolo:


you might want to read some more on the niger delta issue. posters like ibime should be willing to help you.
don't be an assshole who supports an arms dealer and oil bunker.

This is all you needed to say 'cos this is what's making news waves out there so run along and make yourself useful and send me what you have on this.

what kind of info do you look to exchange?

bawomolo:

what kind of info do you look to exchange?

The niger delta issue what is the USA media sharing to its ciitizens about this since you live there? Anything you think can add to our better understanding of what exctly is going on in the niger Delta and the politics surrounding the issue? How does the niger oil industry compare to that of SA especially in relation to the info that RSA has shared with you here.

That's it, if you can think of more add.

PREPARE TO SEE SOUTH AFRICA CELEBRATING OIL DISCOVERY SOON(official statement its a crysecret just like Russia that kept it a secret to reveal their diamonds trillion dollar wealth).Namibia has started rigging its OIL. Namibia has 16 BILLION BARRELS of oil recently the researchers have found out that have 50 billion barrels of oil their rocks formations are similar to Brazil. While Falkland Islands near Argentina have discovered 60 billion barrels of oil their rock formations are similar to West Coast of South Africa. Here the link to SA contigent oil=30billion barrels.

http://www.energy.gov.za/files/IEP/presentations/OilandGasReservesInSA_30March2012.pdf

SALdy with our OIL we be a 1st WORLD COUNTRY by 2030. Its good that we're lifting up the masses/former townships building malls,theatres,parks,universities etc..Our cities are fine. If we continue doing these investments in areas that were ignored crime will be reduced. Those who live in leafy suburbs like me will rest.

BAD NEWS FOR NAIJA, A TINY NATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA NAMIBIA WILL OVERTAKE NIGERIA IN OIL PRODUCTION IN 2015 ONWARDS.

Michael Alexander:14 March 2013
Namibia has potentially huge undiscovered offshore oil and gas fields, but a lack of data is hampering investment into the southern African nation, a senior petroleum official said on Friday.


Recent estimates suggest offshore Namibia contains about 166 billion barrels of original oil
Namibia, largely known for its uranium deposits, has the same geological formations as Brazil, where recent oil finds has raised hopes for similar finds across the Atlantic.

"As far as we are concerned the recent estimates suggest offshore Namibia contains about 166 billion barrels of original oil in place, the mean prospective resources are about 42.6 billion barrels of oil, and 128.8 (trillion cubic feet) of gas prospective resources," Immanuel Mulunga, petroleum commissioner at the Ministry of Mines told an African oil conference.

However, only 16 wells have been drilled along the country's vast coastline, half of them in the Kudu gas field, Mulunga added.

The Kudu deep water offshore gas field, being developed by Tullow Oil and Gazprom among others, has proven gas reserves of 1.3 trillion cubic feet but with an upside of 9 trillion cubic feet, said Mulunga.

London-listed Chariot Oil and Gas Ltd, which has a farm out agreement with Petrobas for its block 2714A in Namibia, said it expects to start production in 2013-14 after drilling its first well next year.

Chariot has eight offshore licenses to invest in three exploration blocks in Namibia, which has since 1999 adopted an open licensing system, allowing international oil companies the ability to apply for acreage at any time.

Mulunga said Namibia had the potential to become a major African oil producer, where big finds in Uganda and Ghana have spurred investors to frontier markets not usually associated with oil production.

"Recent results could locate offshore Namibia as one of the larger oil and gas resources contained in the west African coast," Mulunga said.

Warren Weidemann:
Oil? Hell no! These days the last thing you want, is to discover oil. I think there must be more than a few instances where the oil rich countries have rued the day they discovered oil.
Imagine the good old US of A suddenly taking a pro-active interest in Namibia.
Another oil rich desert country ripe for the picking.

Michael Alexander:
Could Namibia Be Ten Times Better Than Brazil for Oil?


I logged 9,814 air miles. Took four different flights. Spent a total of 54 hours traveling. All to meet with a man they call “Mr. GO Deep…”

“Mr. GO Deep” is the go to guy in offshore oil development. Oil companies pay him HUGE consulting fees in hopes to identify the next deep or ultra deep offshore oil deposits.

Yet in my recent trip down to Brazil, “Mr. GO Deep” sat at a table with me — just me — for two solid hours, explaining what he’s doing in the energy world. And why, while offshore Brazilian oil is good, there’s another deep sea play with even better oil prospects. Then he handed me off to several of his able staff, who were equally generous with their time and perspective. A first-class act, in every respect.

Here’s what I’ve found, along with a few ideas of how you can take advantage of the secrets he shared…

Meet “Mr. GO Deep” – The GO TO Man in Deep Oil Discoveries

The man I’m talking about is Marcio Mello — the always-ebullient Brazilian geochemist and CEO of Brazil’s HRT Petroleum Co. I first met Marcio back at last year’s American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) convention. He wowed the crowd with a discussion of the oil potential of the South Atlantic.

“The Namibian offshore is analogous to that of Brazil,” Marcio stated, with slides and hard data to back it up. Then he showed his proprietary research into natural offshore oil seeps off Namibia, and the geochemistry that demonstrates immense hydrocarbon potential. As for the reservoirs, he showed a slide of proprietary seismic data. “And look at this turbidite stuff,” he yelled, as a couple hundred seasoned geologists in the room both gasped and chuckled.

Indeed, Namibia is destined for oil riches. “But Namibia,” said Marcio, “is way underexplored. So you can put down a little money for the concessions and get very rich.”

Any mention of “very rich” makes my ears perk up. When I questioned Marcio further about the offshore Namibia deposits, he was gracious enough to invite me down to see his facilities in Brazil.

Here’s What I Found About Namibia…

I looked at seismic. I saw geochemistry. I saw satellite data. I saw gravity and magnetic maps. If there’s a frontier spot on earth where you can say that drilling risk is low for wildcat development, it’s offshore Namibia. (You just have to be sure to drill in the right place.)

Nothing is easy, of course. There aren’t a lot of wells offshore Namibia. Just a handful. But we know there’s a giant natural gas field at Kudu in the south, immediately north of the Namibian territorial line with South Africa. So there’s a hydrocarbon system out there. Now we know there’s gas, so where’s the rest of it? As Marcio says, “If I see a little baby, I look for its mama.”

After a week in Brazil, I can say something significant. It’s that right now, some people (guess who) know more about the deep regions offshore Namibia than Petrobras knew about the deep Campos Basin off Brazil before it drilled the Tupi discovery and found 12 billion barrels of oil.

The Secret Finding Namibia’s Oil

To understand what Marcio brings to the table – and his secret for finding deep oil plays — you first have to understand how big oil companies think about exploration…

There are a couple of different exploration philosophies among big oil companies. One philosophy is that the oil company gains an offshore concession and works the heck out of that concession. It puts big bucks into seismic, seismic and more seismic. Then it drills the biggest structure on the concession and MAYBE finds oil.

Or maybe not. Maybe the oil company drills a dry hole, because there’s a big structure with no oil. There are all sorts of geological reasons why this might happen. The bottom line is, “You have a wine bottle, but there’s no wine in it,” as Marcio says.

Another exploration philosophy is that an oil company gains an offshore concession and looks across the entire region for evidence of a petroleum system. Where did the oil and gas originate? Where’s the “oil kitchen”? What are the migration pathways? Where could that oil be now? After a lot of work at the REGIONAL level, then the company hones in on its concession and drills — and it’s not necessarily the big structure. Maybe it drills lower down, like in the oil kitchen.

I’m telling you things that people have spent BILLIONS of dollars learning the hard way. This is information that took Petrobras years to develop. Marcio had an uphill fight at Petrobras for a long time, working to replace “turbidite” thinking (a prolific kind of oil-bearing formation) with “petroleum systems” thinking.

Today, this “petroleum systems approach” is the kind of thinking that Marcio brings to the table.

Why Namibia’s Oil Is Even More Promising Than Brazil’s

If you’re a long time Whiskey reader, you already know I’m very bullish on Brazilian oil opportunities. But there are some things that make the Namibian oil plays even better. Allow me to explain…

Brazil is about to pass a set of new petroleum laws that will put its entire pre-salt region under the jurisdiction of a new national oil company (NOC), meaning NOT Petrobras, which is publicly owned. Future pre-salt deals will be along the lines of production sharing arrangements (PSAs) with the NOC, which private oil companies HATE because they can’t book the reserves and impress Wall Street.

There are all sorts of issues about how much interest Petrobras will get in future Brazil offshore concessions (30% is the current number). And how Petrobras will be the operator, on behalf of the NOC, of all future pre-salt plays off Brazil. It’s going to be complicated, if not hairy!

The bottom line is that if an international oil company wants to look for big oil fields, like pre-salt plays and find and book those huge volumes of oil, it has to go somewhere else.

Where else? Why… Namibia, of course! Offshore Namibia, you can get 10 times the acreage for 1/10th the price. For now..

There are many ways for you to take advantage of this discovery. First, if you’re looking for a home run opportunity, try searching some of the smaller oil companies with concessions in Namibia. You’ll want to look mainly at ones that are pure plays, though. A second, less exciting but safer way to play it would be to look at some of the big oil service companies that provide the drill bits, rigs, and hardware for general deep sea oil discoveries.

I recently put together a special report on Investing in Offshore Oil that discusses offshore oil investing plays.

LINK: http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/could-namibia-be-ten-times-better-than-brazil-for-oil/

Well SA founded the largest reserves of hydrogen. And are looking at ways to extracted it with out causeing harm to the envioroment.

bawomolo:

are we supposed to be jealous of south africa's sucess?  this is news that should be celebrated without bringing some silly rivalry to it.

i think you south african posters on NL have an inferiority complex.   what part of we don't wish SA evil don't you guys understand.

you might want to read some more on the niger delta issue. posters like ibime should be willing to help you.
don't be an assshole who supports an arms dealer and oil
bunker.

On one hand you say one thing on other you are insulting people are you brain scared or something? You seem to be the only one throwing insult on avery clean thread. By the way,
inferiority complex? You are projecting here dear. And take chill pill please!

2010? Common people.no wahala here

[b]TO MY FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS THERES A RESEARCH THAT WAS RELEASED BY PETROSA AND SHELL THAT SHOWS THAT THERES ALOT OF OIL LYING UNTAPPED ON THE WEST COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA. Soon theyr going to make this official, the reason for the delays is because of the new MINING AND OIL BILL. Thats scaring foreign firms like Shell and others.

THIS IS FROM THE OPPOSITION PARTY.
Acknowledging the fact we're a BLESSED NATION. THERES A CHANCE THAT WE HAVE MORE OIL THAN NIGERIA OR LIBYA.
PetroSA's 1st paper on our oil potential stands at 30 billion barrles of contingent oil.
Cape Times

South Africa: SA Today
2 June 2013
Related Topics


There is light at the end of the tunnel for South Africa's economic and unemployment crisis. But will the ANC extinguish it? When I read this excellent speech by James Lorimer MP, the DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources recently, during a Parliamentary budget debate, I thought many more people should do so too. I asked him to edit it, so that I could circulate it as "SA Today".

Despite all of South Africa's mineral resources we sometimes don't think we're really resource blessed.

The belief that South Africa is probably surrounded by rich oil fields has arisen because of a new research about our offshore geology.

Most people already know that we've got offshore gas in the relatively shallow waters off Mossel Bay. But the new research is that the gas off the West coast is not an "outlier", but rather an indication there could be much, much more down there. It all relates to developments many millennia ago, when the continents were closer together. Part of South America was snuggled up against the Cape, more or less where the Falkland Islands are now. And oil has been found in the seabed off the Falklands.(note Falklands have discovered 60 billion barrels of oil).

The allocations have gone to big oil drilling players, like Shell, Total, ExxonMobil and Anadarko. All of them reckon there's a strong chance there might be oil or at least significant amounts of gas in the deep and hitherto unexplored seabed off our coast. One industry expert says they're hoping for oil and expecting lots of gas.

One Texas-based large oil and gas exploration and production company, that found significant oil off the coast of Ghana resulting in Ghana becoming one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, has also recently discovered a vast gas field off the Mozambique coast, containing the equivalent of the known gas reserves of Qatar. The company has interests in a block off the coast of Cape Town and will possibly need to risk around $250 million in order to ascertain whether there is a significant oil field lurking somewhere in the deep water, below the seabed.[/b]