Lobby group plans to challenge decision to authorise offshore oil & gas exploration

CAPE TOWN - A local lobby group is on Monday set for a legal showdown with global multi-energy companies at the Western Cape High Court over offshore oil and gas exploration. 

This comes as Green Connection plans to challenge the decision to authorise offshore oil and gas exploration between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas.

Although TotalEnergies withdrew its exploration activities last year, the oil major later announced it had teamed up with Shell in legal proceedings.   

The application was made on the basis that Shell holds a commercial interest and would become the exploration operator in future. 

READ: Small-scale fishers oppose gas exploration off West Coast

But the environmental group said the exploration rights have lapsed and that Shell has no legal standing in the case. 

Green Connection advocacy officer Lisa Makaula said if authorisation were to be granted, it would impact marine life. 

"The proper processes of ensuring that good governance happens within the application process, we believe they were not properly done. This project could possibly pose a huge risk, particularly to the local industries that are of your small-scale fishers as well as your tourism industry."

Meanwhile, some environmental groups are expected to stage several pickets in parts of the country as Green Connection heads to court.
 
Pickets are set to take place in Cape Town, Johannesburg, parts of KZN and the Eastern Cape. 

Makaula said the government has failed to properly assess the environmental risks the exploration project could incur.   

"Given that as a country also we are on our pathway of moving away from fossil fuel projects, we do not think that the need and desirability of this project was properly done, given that we have also signed some international climate agreements."