13 Mar 2014

Southern Africa has trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane presenting a good future of energy production, the deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Nchidzi Mmolawa, has said.

Opening a workshop on unconventional gas on behalf of minerals minister, Mr Kitso Mokaila on March 11, Mr Mmolawa said a study undertaken by the department of geological survey revealed a potential resource in the order of 30 to 40 trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane trapped in coal seams.

He said Mozambique was estimated to yield more than 120 trillion cubic feet of natural gas while South Africa had a potential of more than 400 trillion cubic feet of shale gas resources.

“This means that there is currently a lot of explorative work going on in these countries to assess resources,” he said. Mr Mmolawa said extraction methods or techniques had to be environmentally friendly and should at the same time give optimum yields of the gas extracted.

“The imminent use of natural gas in Southern Africa as source of energy means that there is need to build the infrastructure and make regulations that will be used in the utilisation of natural gas,” he said.

He said the Mines and Mineral Act was undergoing review to strengthen the legal provisions which would ensure that companies operated to best international standards.

He also said government planned to facilitate the downstream gas industry with a specific legislation, which would be put in place after completing the energy policy, which was still being finalised and implementation of Botswana energy and water regulator.

Mr Mmolawa said government commissioned a 90 MW peaking plant in Orapa which used dual fuel open cycle gas turbines. It was operating on diesel but had the capability to convert to gas at a later stage, once commercial production was achieved.

“The ministry will float an expression of interest to supply gas to this power station in 2014 to substitute the expensive diesel generation with coal bed methane gas,” he said.

The one-day workshop was organised in conjunction with the US Embassy which assisted with bringing international expertise from US Bureau of Energy, US Geological Survey, Colorado School of Mines and the private sector. Ends