Southern African Development Community
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries should look into ways of integrating energy structures in order to reduce the cost of energy resources, Energy Minister Dipuo Peters says.
“We are of the view that SADC structures on energy should be integrated and mobilized. This is necessary because of the growing evidence that separate development planning in the end may cost end users more,” said Peters on Tuesday.
“It may be more effective to link the regions pipeline network for gas as well as petroleum products. These may be a more effective intervention than costly investment in road transport tankers and rail road cars,” added the minister.
To date, Angola has the largest gas reserves distribution in the region with about 271.8 billion cubic metres followed by Mozambique at 127.4 billion cubic metres, Namibia at 62.3 billion cubic metres, Tanzania at 6.5 billion cubic metres and South Africa with 27 million cubic metres.
The gas finds in Mozambique that were reported last year are set to catapult that country to the top.
These, she said, augured well for regional trade and development as well provided a further strategic opportunity to lift the prosperities of the continent.
“We should be asking ourselves and spare some thought on how these resources can be used to best serve sub-Saharan Africa and the entire continent first. As South Africa, with a clear intent of creating a sustainable gas market in our country, we will continue to engage with our sister countries to find the best way of utilising these resources, whilst making the necessary returns on investment,” said Peters.
South Africa is of the view that governments in the region should strengthen their national oil companies as well as redefine the role that they should play in directing the exploration of the natural resources that the continent possesses.
“Amongst others, there is a need to harmonise the regulatory frameworks in the region so as to ease the cost of doing business in the region and indeed on the continent.”
South Africa, Peters said, is working on the development of the 20 Year Liquid Fuels Infrastructure Plan with work already been done. The development of the plan will be concluded before the end of the year.
“The development of this plan involves identifying constraints in the liquid fuels supply value chain and determining the infrastructural requirements to ensure the security of supply of liquid fuels to the economy in the medium- to long-term,” said Peters.
Meanwhile, Peters said there was no detail on the building of nuclear energy plants in South Africa.
“The government of South Africa, through its ministries, maintains agreements with various countries on issues including nuclear energy. To date the NNEECC (National Nuclear Energy Executive
Committee Commission) has not given any directive on the issue of procurement for the programme,” she explained.
The NNEECC was approved by Cabinet and is responsible for determining the roll out of the nuclear programme. – BuaNews
