South Africa is working on a policy for the development of oil and gas resources as potential investors sought certainity in the industry, Bloomberg reported.
According to Bloomberg, Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe in a speech to parliament in Cape Town, said, “We need to speedily work to entrench regulatory and policy certainty,”
“The department has begun with the process of developing a Petroleum Resources Development Bill.”
It appears that South Africa passing a separate bill for oil and gas industry is extremely important, especially after Total SA announced its first deepwater oil discovery off the coast of South Africa, Bloomberg said.
After the discovery, Total SA opened up a new oil and gas province in the region. Kevin McLachlan, senior vice president of exploration at Total announced that the Brulpadda discovery was drilled in a ‘challenging deep-water environment’.
The Brulpadda well is located off the shore of Mossel Bay, which is recognised as a highly potential exploration site for the company.
The new policy will in fact secure the industry from any kind of uncertaining in the mining sector, which is largely suppressed owing to several debates over government’s new laws focused on redistributing the country’s mineral wealth.
Mantashe said that the bill will be passed in hope to ensure ‘regulatory certainty to the upstream petroleum industry’ and boost its development in the future.
Currently, South Africa imports 60 percent of oil commodities in the form of crude. The crude is then processed at local refineries.
South Africa is planning to establish itself as an energy hub and a key market player in the sub-Saharan African region.