Up until now only a summary of the report had been made public. The ‘Investigation of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo Basin of South Africa’ is the report the department based its decision on to lift the moratorium on shale gas exploration in the Karoo basin. The 80-page document was compiled by a task team established to evaluate the use of the hydraulic fracturing technique, known as fracking, to extract shale gas in South Africa.
It comprised representatives from the departments of Environmental Affairs and Water Affairs, Science and Technology, Energy and Mineral Resources, as well as from the Petroleum Agency of South Africa, the Council for Geosciences, Square Kilometre Array South Africa, the Water Research Commission and Eskom.
Technical advice was also obtained from academics from the University of the Free State and the University of the Western Cape. It has been estimated that the country could have the fifth-largest shale-gas resource in the world, or about 485-trillion cubic feet of gas, Engineering News reported.
Report on Investigation of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo Basin of South Africa.
