South Africa’s natural gas constitutes more than 3.2 per cent of the nations primary energy supply, according to an analysis by ResearchAndMarkets
According to ResearchAndMarkets, the consumption of natural gas in South Africa contracted by 2.3 per cent year-on-year in 2017.
The Department of Energy has identified the harnessing of conventional and unconventional forms of gas as a strategic imperative. The stakeholders report that South Africa's uptake of gas continues to be constrained by the country's relatively underdeveloped gas transmission and storage infrastructure.
However, the gas forms an important part of the country's future energy mix. In terms of the new Integrated Resources Plan, the installed capacity of natural gas is expected to increase to 11,930MW, or 16 per cent of total installed capacity, by 2030.
With the depletion of South Africa's offshore F-A field and South Coast Complex fields, which supplied indigenous natural gas to PetroSA's Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) plant in Mossel Bay, the country remains largely reliant on imported natural gas from Mozambique. Ibhubesi, off the coast of the Northern Cape, is South Africa's largest proven natural gas field with an estimated 540 bcf of recoverable reserves and is expected to start producing gas commercially by 2020.
South Africa's onshore natural gas and helium reserves are in Virginia in the Free State. Recent research suggests that recoverable shale gas resources in the Karoo Basin are in the 13 tcf to 49 tcf range, substantially lower than previous estimates. After years of delay, 27 renewable energy agreements have been signed with independent power producers.
