South Africa lifts ban on shale gas exploration at Karoo

Seventeen months after the imposition of a moratorium on shale gas exploration in the semi-arid Karoo region, the government of South Africa lifted the ban last week, after a study eased safety concerns related to the extraction technique known as “fracking”. “When the results of the study came back, they recommended that it was clearly safe for us to have that program of exploration of shale gas”, a spokesman for the government said.

According to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, South Africa holds some 13.7 trillion cubic meters of technically recoverable shale gas resources, most of which are located in the vast Karoo Basin. It would rank the nation as the world’s fifth largest reserves and could be a long-term solution for the energy problems of Africa's largest economy, which relies on coal to produce 85% of its electricity.