Nonprofit organisation The Green Connection has described the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s (DMRE’s) decision to grant TotalEnergies Exploration and Production South Africa environmental authorisation to conduct exploratory drilling off the southwest coast, as irresponsible.

The organisation may decide to appeal the decision.

It comments in a release issued on April 21 that it is always disappointing when government “appears to choose profits over the needs of people, while also ignoring government responsibility to address climate change”.

Interested and affected parties have 20 days from April 20 to appeal the decision with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. The environmental authorisation allows TotalEnergies to drill up to five exploration wells within the area known as Block 5/6/7, which spans 10 000 km².

The Green Connection also considers it irresponsible for the DMRE to downplay the risks associated with a major oil spill, as this could have devastating consequences for ocean and coastal ecosystems, as well as coastal communities.

The organisation also commented this in the stakeholder engagement process related to TotalEnergies’ Draft Scoping Report for the blocks.

Coincidently, Green Connection says this week marks the thirteenth anniversary of fellow energy company BP’s devastating Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster, which proves that catastrophic wellhead blowouts can happen.

The BP incident involved a rig explosion that left 11 people dead and over three-million barrels of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico for four months.

While the DMRE admits that the impact of an unplanned event such as a blowout range can be highly dangerous, it also considers such as occurrence as very unlikely to occur.

Green Connection is concerned that a major oil spill could devastate the environment along the coast, its people and ecosystems. “South Africans should not be forced to take this kind of risk,” says Green Connection community outreach coordinator Neville van Rooy.

He believes government should choose development options that provide the most benefit and cause the least damage, both in the short and the long term.

“It is confusing that government still puts so much faith in the development potential of oil and gas, knowing full well that its extraction and use will worsen the climate crisis,” Van Rooy adds.

Green Connection strategic lead Liziwe McDaid says the DMRE seems to disregard potential climate impacts that may result from operations such as that of Teepsa along the coast.

She states that the next 20 years present a critical window for addressing the climate crisis and it is therefore not desirable for the country to continue investing in fossil fuel sources.

Meanwhile, many stakeholders on the other end of the spectrum state that offshore drilling is always risky to some degree, but the oil and gas industry as a whole is working harder than ever to mitigate risks.

The footprint of a seabed exploration drilling operation is also much smaller than that of an oil extraction operation, which follows later, if drilling serves to find significant and

viable oil and gas reserves. Roughly seven out of ten exploration sites offshore yield no development potential.

Some stakeholders argue that oil and gas development helps developing countries become less dependent on imports, creates jobs and offers massive economic development potential. This while the demand for oil and gas will not be dissipating overnight in the wake of more renewable energy development.

As stated in its 2023 Sustainability Report, TotalEnergies targets investing $5-billion in 2023 on low carbon energy development and ultimately aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 The company has made significant progress to reduce emissions and implement environment, social and governance initiatives.

TotalEnergies says in its report new oil projects are needed to meet continued strong demand, maintain prices at an acceptable level and create the conditions for a “just” transition that gives people time to change their energy practices.

According to the International Energy Agency’s latest expectation, global oil demand will peak in 2030 and then subside, but at a slower pace than the natural rate of oil field decline, therefore new oil projects will be necessary to meet demand, even under the 1.7 °C global warming scenario.

In the offshore oil and gas space, TotalEnergies collaborated with the Ocean 100 initiative, led by World Resources Institute and World Economic Forum, to analyse the company’s interactions with the ocean to define a comprehensive strategy at company level. “In terms of operations, we deployed specific biodiversity action plans for our offshore facilities in Congo and Denmark in 2022,” TotalEnergies confirms in its report.

The company has set itself various environmental preservation targets, including on circular resource management, reducing freshwater withdrawals and biodiversity management, all while creating shared value with stakeholders.