SOUTH AFRICA IS HYDROCARBON POOR, BUT HAS BIG PLANS FOR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 CAPE TOWN 000056 SIPDIS SENSITIVE STATE PLEASE PASS USAID STATE PLEASE PASS USGS DEPT FOR AF/S, EEB/ESC AND CBA DOE FOR SPERL AND PERSON DOC FOR ITA/DIEMOND E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EPET ENRG EMIN EINV EIND ETRD ELAB SF SUBJECT: SOUTH AFRICA IS HYDROCARBON POOR, BUT HAS BIG PLANS FOR REFINERIES AND PIPELINES REF: A) Pretoria 393 B) 08 Pretoria 386 C) 08 Pretoria 351 ¶1. (SBU) This cable is not for Internet distribution. This cable is a collaboration between Embassy Pretoria and Consulate General Cape Town. Summary. South Africa has limited reserves of crude oil and natural gas and imports 70 percent of its requirements, which are for the most part refined locally. The remaining 30 percent of its liquid fuel comes from the conversion of coal and gas and the potential for coal bed methane is now gaining interest. Demand for liquid fuels has exceeded refinery capacity and ever larger quantities of refined fuels are being imported. Pipeline and bulk rail transportation infrastructure has also reached capacity and product is increasingly being moved inland by road, raising costs and causing deterioration and overcrowding of the road system. The SAG is promoting construction of new pipelines and an ambitious 400,000 barrels per day refinery at Coega in the Eastern Cape Province. Prospects for discoveries of oil and gas on- and off-shore are not favored by geology, but remain to be tested using state-of-the-art exploration techniques. Deep water structures offer some potential, but exploration investment has been hampered by a complex fiscal and regulatory regime, which has not been perceived as welcoming by the international industry. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) This cable was composed using information gleaned from meetings with the following contacts, mostly on the margins of the Mining Indaba in Cape Town February 9-12 (Ref A): -- Jack Holliday, CE, Lengau Resources - Coalbed Methane; -- Prof Philip Lloyd, Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town; -- John Langhus, Director, Forest Oil - Ibhubesi Gas Project; -- Marek Ranoszek, GM, Pioneer Resources - Oil and Gas fields; -- Avhapfani (Fani) Tshifularo, CE, SAPIA (Petroleum Industry Association); -- Dr. Faizel Mulla, Corporate Strategy Manager, PetroSA - Oil, Gas, and Synfuels; -- Mthozami Xiphu, CEO, Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA); -- Charl Moller, CE, Transnet Pipelines (from an earlier meeting in Durban). -------------- South Africa's Growing Demand for Fuel 
 -------------- ¶3. (SBU) South Africa faces growing demand for liquid fuels, particularly taxing its capacity to provision inland demand. A total of 27.5 billion liters (173 million barrels) of liquid fuels were consumed in South Africa during the economically good times of fiscal year September 2007 - August 2008. This represented an increase of some 31 percent since 2003 and exceeded the actual capacity of domestic refineries -- 26.0 billion liters (164 million barrels) in 2006 by 6 percent. No new refinery capacity has been added during recent years and some has been lost due to upgradings, accidents, and maintenance requirements. Industry has resorted to depleting stocks and to importing refined product to sustain retail Qdepleting stocks and to importing refined product to sustain retail supply. Demand grew steadily -- but unevenly -- during the six-year period from 2003, but declined by some eight percent during the second half of 2008. During the six-year period to September 2008, gasoline consumption increased by 18 percent, diesel by 62 percent, and jet fuel by 25 percent, according to Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) liquid fuels Officer Hein Baak. -------------- -------------- Limited Fuel Supplies - but Domestic Potential Exists -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) South Africa produces limited amounts of crude oil and natural gas from a number of small offshore deposits along the CAPE TOWN 00000056 002 OF 005 southern coast of the Western Cape Province (Ref B). Reserves are modest and will be depleted by about 2011-2012, pending further discoveries (there were estimated reserves of 318 billion cubic feet of natural gas at the end of January 2008). Natural gas produced is used to supply state oil company PetroSA's Mossel Bay gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant, which produces liquid fuels and chemicals. In particular, PetroSA produces a zero-sulfur diesel that is exported or sold to local markets for blending with higher sulfur diesels, according to PetroSA Manager Faizel Mulla. PetroSA is looking to secure other gas supplies, including imports of LNG, to maintain production at its GTL plant. In addition, some 4.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year is imported from Mozambique by South Africa's synthetic gas-to-liquids producer Sasol, which plans to increase this amount by 20 percent by the end of 2009. ¶5. (SBU) U.S. firm Forest Oil is developing the Ibhubesi gas field, which lies some 70-80 kilometers off the Western Cape coast, 300 kilometers north of Cape Town. The field is estimated to contain reserves of about one trillion cubic feet of gas, based on an initial four-exploration-well-drilling program. Five additional wells were subsequently drilled, partially funded by partner PetroSA, but these yielded disappointing results, which did not add to the reserve base. The field is not yet in production and majority shareholder and operator Forest Oil has been waiting for a production license and finalization of the fiscal and regulatory regime from the Petroleum Agency of SA (PASA) for a number of years. Forest has recently posted Director John Langhus to Cape Town to procure the final license, market and distribute the gas onshore, and generate a return on the $100 million total investment in the project ($57 million by Forest). Prime candidates to take Ibhubesi gas are state power utility Eskom and west coast industrial companies at Saldanha Bay. (Note. It was hoped that Ibhubesi might have sufficient gas to feed PetroSA's GTL plant, but it appears that the reserve is too small to justify the costs of a 400-600 kilometer pipeline to the plant at Mossel Bay. End Comment.) ¶6. (SBU) South Africa possesses ample reserves of coal (and uranium). The country produces only 4-5,000 barrels of crude oil per day from two nearly depleted fields and relies on imports for 70 percent of its crude oil supply, mainly from the Middle-East, supplemented by domestic coal-and gas-to-liquids capacity. The imported crude is refined in four internationally-owned refineries with a total capacity of 513,000 barrels per day: -- Sapref in Durban has a capacity of 180,000 barrels per day and is jointly owned by oil companies Royal Dutch Shell of Holland and BP of the UK; -- Enref in Durban has a capacity of 125,000 barrels per day and is owned by Malaysian oil company Petronas; -- Chevref in Cape Town has a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day Q-- Chevref in Cape Town has a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day and is owned by U.S. oil company Chevron; -- Natref in Sasolburg has a capacity of 108,000 barrels per day and is jointly owned by South Africa's Sasol (64 percent) and French company Total (36 percent). ¶7. (SBU) Recent economic growth has rendered the country's fuel capacity insufficient to meet the needs of the economy and some 6-8 percent of refined products are being imported, although this percentage is now declining with the weakening economy. Fuel supply is supplemented by synthetic fuels from the conversion of natural gas (PetroSA) and coal (Sasol),accounting for nearly 30 percent of South Africa's refined fuel output. PetroSA's GTL plant at Mossel Bay has a rated refined capacity of 45,000 barrels per day and Sasol produces some 160,000 barrels per day of refined fuels at its coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant at Secunda, located 100 kilometers south-east of Johannesburg. Both plants are the biggest commercial ventures of their kind in the world and both produce zero-sulfur and high quality diesels and kerosenes, the latter having proved of sufficient quality for jet engines. (Note. Sasol/Chevron, Shell, Marathon, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips have plans for GTL plants ranging from 80-140,000 barrels per day to be built in Qatar, but these will only reach production during the next decade. To date, CAPE TOWN 00000056 003 OF 005 only Sasol's 34,000 barrels per day Oryx GTL plant is producing. End Note.) -------------- Fuel Transport a Bottleneck to Supply -------------- ¶8. (SBU) South Africa may not be able to supply its inland fuel needs by the third quarter of 2009 unless something drastic is done, according to DME Deputy Director-General of Hydrocarbons and Energy Planning Nhlanhla Gumede in June 2008. State-owned Transnet's former CEO Maria Ramos acknowledged that mitigation strategies need to be implemented before that time with respect to provisioning greater Johannesburg. Transnet Pipeline CEO Charl Moller told Energy Officer the company has implemented interim remedies to augment Durban-Johannesburg pipeline capacity such as the introduction of drag-reducing agents to reduce pipeline friction. This step has increased annual throughput by as much as 30 percent (from 3.2 to 4.2 billion liters or 20 to 26 million barrels). Transnet Freight Rail has also purchased specialized bulk wagons to move fuel inland. Despite these efforts, the pipeline is operating at full capacity and more than two-billion liters (12.6 million barrels) of fuel per year are being transported by road or rail per year (Moller quoted 800 million liters or 5 million barrels by rail and 1.6 billion liters or 10.1 million barrels by road). -------------- From Strategic Stock to Market Trading -------------- ¶9. (SBU) South Africa has long held strategic petroleum stocks as part of maintaining energy security and self-sufficiency. Saldanha Bay on the west coast hosts a fuel tank farm consisting of six concrete containers, which hold 7.5 million barrels of oil each (Ref C). This strategic stock facility has a total capacity of 45 million barrels of oil, making it the biggest installation of its kind in Africa. It was constructed as a clandestine installation for strategic oil storage under the apartheid government, but now international oil traders have contracted to use the site to store their oil supplies. Overseas contractors use about 35 million barrels of storage capacity, while the remaining 10 million is used by South Africa for trade and as a strategic oil stock. The tank farm is managed by the state-owned Central Energy Fund. -------------- Need for State-of-the-Art Exploration -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Limited hydrocarbon exploration has been carried out in South Africa to date for a variety of reasons. Onshore exploration by state-owned PetroSA (formerly Soekor) in the 1970's was unsuccessful, but did produce some positive hydrocarbon indicators, which PetroSA is planning to re-investigate. Offshore drilling in shallow waters has had limited success, but remote sensing surveys in northern sectors of the west coast towards Namibia -- at water depths of more than 2,000 meters -- have indicated potentially Qdepths of more than 2,000 meters -- have indicated potentially favorable oil and gas traps. Plans by BHP-Billiton (with U.S. company Occidental, which subsequently withdrew from the venture) to drill a deep exploration well in the area at a cost of $50-70 million have been delayed while fiscal and regulatory certainty was negotiated. BHP and the South African government are progressing in their discussions on the fiscal framework under which drilling could proceed, according to new BHP Southern Africa Chairperson Xolani Mkhwanazi. With the exception of portions of the southern Cape shallow continental shelf, the remaining shelf and its deeper confines around the South African coastline have not been explored using state-of-the-art exploration technologies and methods. Onshore and inland exploration also has not been done using the newest technologies. -------------- CAPE TOWN 00000056 004 OF 005 Impediments to Investment in Exploration -------------- ¶11. (SBU) The potential for hydrocarbons in South Africa needs to be tested using modern technology, but requires licensing, fiscal, and regulatory certainty to attract exploration investment. Not a single lease area was taken up by exploration companies during PASA's 2008 international promotional road-show because of this uncertainty, according to PASA CEO Mthozami Xiphu. However, he said impediments relating to the outstanding Royalty Bill (postponed for implementation in mid-2010 instead of 2009),as well as fiscal and legal requirements have been sorted out to the extent that Forest and BHP projects could go ahead as early as the end of this year. -------------- Ambitious Projects -------------- ¶12. (SBU) New Pipelines: The increasing need for fuel in the industrial heartland of the country requires an expansion of the transportation infrastructure. Transnet Freight Rail service has proved inadequate to the task, the pipelines from Durban have reached capacity, and bulk road transport has had to fill the gap. Government has allocated some $14 billion to upgrade and expand road and rail capacity, but this has not yet been fully implemented. Two fuel pipeline projects to alleviate the bottleneck are at different stages of development. Transnet Pipelines CEO Moller said the company has begun construction of a 540-kilometer, 24-inch, three-pump-station, multi-product pipeline from Durban to Johannesburg at a cost of $1.1-$1.2 billion, which should be completed by third quarter 2012. Secondly, private company Petroline has applied to build a 12-inch pipeline from Maputo in Mozambique to Nelspruit in Mpumulanga Province at a cost of $500 million, to be completed in time for the 2010 World Soccer Cup event. (Comment. It is unlikely that the pipeline will be completed by the proposed completion dates as regulatory requirements and licenses have still to be finalized. End Comment.) ¶13. (SBU) Coal bed Methane: Other developments to facilitate fuel supplies to South Africa's industrial heartland include the ongoing evaluation by Anglo American and others of the coal bed methane (CBM) potential of the Waterberg coalfields in north-eastern Limpopo Province. No commercial production of CBM has taken place in South Africa to date. (Comment: A number of international companies are investigating the CBM potential of the Waterberg extension in Botswana. End Comment). Sasol is evaluating the feasibility of a new 80,000 barrel per day CTL plant in the Waterberg coal-bearing region and also plans to increase its existing plant output by 30,000 barrels to 180-190,000 barrels per day over the next seven years. Eskom is researching the viability of in-situ coal gasification in Mpumulanga Province. The deposit in question has proved un-mineable and if the tests prove positive, the process will reduce environmental impact and emissions from coal and Qreduce environmental impact and emissions from coal and substantially increase the country's exploitable coal reserves. ¶14. (SBU) Refinery: South Africa's concern with security of future fuel supply has prompted the development of both the large-capacity, 540-kilometer, multi-product pipeline from Durban and PetroSA's proposed 400,000 barrel per day state-of-the-art refinery (known as Mthombo) designed to process cheaper heavy crude oils of the type produced in the Venezuela Orinoco oil field. (Comment. Heavy crude oils also occur in Angola and Chad, but it is not clear whether any of these would be made available to the proposed refinery. End Comment.) The SAG has entered into some loose arrangements -- with no tangible commitments on either side -- with Venezuela's government on such cooperation. PetroSA's Faizel Mulla stated that the proposed new refinery, together with the existing refineries, would give South Africa the flexibility to import a variety of oils from a number of sources. Excess refined product would be sold as required. CAPE TOWN 00000056 005 OF 005 ¶15. (SBU) PetroSA CEO Sipho Mkhize is reported as saying U.S.-based engineering firm KBR was scheduled to complete the feasibility study on the refinery in August and construction would start in 2010, with first production expected in 2015. KBR was appointed as the engineering contractor for the project in December 2008 and will be responsible for the execution of the feasibility study, the front-end engineering design, and project management of the project through to the commissioning of the refinery. Mkhize also noted that the project's estimated cost had been reduced to $9 billion from the initial $11 billion, owing to fewer process units, lower materials costs, and lower engineering construction costs. ¶16. (SBU) Comment. South Africa is frustrated that its neighbors are blessed with hydrocarbons, but its own potential has never materialized. On-shore exploration by the previous government drew a blank and it developed CTL and GTL capacity to gain a measure of self-sufficiency in the face of trade sanctions. It is not clear that PetroSA will manage to build its ambitious refinery. It is also not clear what will happen to existing refineries, which face an estimated cost of $4 billion to upgrade to meet pending clean air standards over the next five years. These refineries would also be forced to compete with the greater economies of scale and more efficient technology of the proposed state-owned PetroSA refinery. If it became clear that the PetroSA refinery was going to be built, this could undermine the justification for the upgrades for the smaller refineries. Mayberry