据3月15日今日油价报道，南非解除页岩气勘探禁令已经近10年了，但这个资源丰富的国家的页岩气产业潜力从未真正被挖掘。人们对广阔的半沙漠地区卡鲁盆地给予了极大的关注和期望，但在过去十年中，对有潜力的钻井者来说，一系列关于页岩气前景的研究显示，结果越来越令人失望。早在2017年，一篇题为《南非页岩气:游戏规则的改变者还是默默无闻》的文章似乎倾向卡鲁盆地中部地区的天然气储量上限非常低——大约为20万亿立方英尺。事实上，20万亿立方英尺大约是南非煤炭储量的四十分之一。与非洲其他天然气储量相比，莫桑比克的常规海上天然气储量也相形见绌，据估计，莫桑比克的常规海上天然气储量为75万亿立方英尺。
Robert Scholes表示：“在南非发现一个有价值的天然气藏，即使规模很小，也有可能改变一个国家的能源经济。但是，在基础设施、监管工具、检测机构和井场开发方面进行大量投资，来获得可能不存在的资源，这在财政、政治和环境方面都存在风险。”
但现在，在将近四年后的今天，卡鲁盆地再次回到了人们的视野中，页岩投资者再次找到了值得乐观的东西。首先，情况已经发生了变化，随着天然气成为一种需求日益旺盛的资源，预计未来几年全球需求将快速增长。根据国际能源机构(IEA)的预测，未来五年，全球对天然气的需求每年将超过煤炭和石油1.6%。这种增长是由多种因素共同推动的，包括充足的供应、相对低的价格，以及天然气的碳排放比石油或煤炭要少，作为化石燃料其对环境更有利。由于这些原因，天然气将成为最后一种需求达到峰值的主要化石燃料，并在本世纪中叶成为世界主要能源。
因此，历史上一直依赖煤炭的非洲正在寻找进入页岩气领域的途径，这也就不足为奇了。卡鲁地区再次处于一些倡议的聚焦点。不仅是卡鲁盆地，最近在南非南部海岸发现的凝析油也重新燃起了在该地区发展更强劲的天然气产业的热情。南非的天然气生产是上周非洲天然气论坛的主要主题之一。
更重要的一点是，20万亿立方英尺的估计可能是错的。自2017年以来，其他报告的估计引用的上限数字接近200万亿立方英尺。即使实际可开采的天然气只有这个数字的一半，页岩气也可能彻底改变南非和整个非洲大陆的游戏规则。在历史上，南非能源行业每年的投资缺口达500亿美元。
将南非大部分未开发的天然气资源引入全球市场将对南非的经济产生重大影响，同时也可能对整个世界产生重大影响。这可能会带来一些积极的外部影响，可以增加天然气的供应，削弱石油和煤炭等对气候造成更大破坏的能源使用。然而，尽管天然气更有利于环境，但政府间气候变化专门委员会的专家们表示，仅仅是更好的能源选择还是不够的，为了避免气候变化带来的最坏影响，天然气开采在这十年必须减少。为了让非洲最终在全球能源市场中获得一席之地，最好不要将目光仅仅停留在卡鲁地区，而是开始吸引绿色技术的投资，以便在一个以可再生能源为主导的未来站稳脚跟。
王佳晶 摘译自 今日油价
原文如下：
South Africa Hopes To Become The Next Big Shale Success Story
It’s been nearly a decade since South Africa lifted a freeze on shale gas exploration, but the resource-rich nation’s potential ensuing shale revolution never quite materialized. Much attention and expectations have been bestowed upon the vast, semi-desert region called the Karoo basin, but a series of studies on the potential shale play over the past decade have shown increasingly disappointing results for prospective drillers. Back in 2017, in an article in The Conversation delightfully titled “Shale gas in South Africa: game-changer or damp squib?,” seemed to lean far toward the damp squib end of the spectrum, pointing out that recent estimates had shown the upper limit of gas reserves in the Central Karoo as discouragingly low--around 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf)--what the author referred to as “trillion cubic feet (tcf).” In fact, it’s about one fortieth of the size of South Africa’s coal reserves. It’s also dwarfed by other natural gas reserves in Africa--Mozambique’s conventional offshore gas reserves hold an estimated 75 tcf.
“A viable gas find in South Africa, even if quite small, would potentially transform the national energy economy,” Robert Scholes wrote in The Conversation. “But making a large investment in infrastructure, regulatory tools, monitoring bodies, and wellfield development for a resource which may not exist is financially, politically and environmentally risky.”
But now, nearly four years later, the Karoo is back in the headlines, and shale speculators are once again finding something to be optimistic about. For starters, the context has changed as natural gas becomes an increasingly in-demand resource, with global demand projected to grow at a brisk clip in coming years. According to projections compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA), global demand for natural gas is on track to outpace both coal and oil by 1.6% each year for the next five years. This growth is being catalyzed by a confluence of factors including plentiful supply, accordingly low prices, and natural gas’ environmental benefits as a less emissions-intensive fossil fuel than oil or coal. For these reasons, gas is going to be the last major fossil fuel to experience peak demand, and will more than likely be the world’s primary energy source toward the middle of this century.
So it’s no wonder that Africa, which has historically been reliant on coal, is looking for ways to break into the shale gas game, and the Karoo has once again found itself at the center of some of those initiatives. And not only the Karoo--a recent gas condensate discovery off the southern coast of South Africa has also renewed enthusiasm for developing a more robust natural gas sector in the region. Natural gas production in South Africa was one of the major themes at last week’s Africa Gas Forum.
And then there’s the fact that the 20 trillion cubic feet estimate might be off--WAY off. Other estimates reported since that 2017 dismissal are citing upper limit numbers closer to 200 trillion cubic feet. Even if the actual extractable gas is merely half that amount, shale gas could be a complete game-changer for South Africa and the African continent as a whole, which has historically experienced a monumentally limiting $50 billion energy sector investment gap each year.
Bringing South Africa’s largely untapped gas resources into the global market would have major implications for the domestic economy, but could also have major implications for the entire world. It may have some positive externalities, adding to the supply of natural gas and undercutting more climate-damaging resources like oil and coal. While natural gas is better, however, experts in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that better isn’t good enough, and natural gas extraction will have to be scaled back this decade in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. In order for Africa to finally get a seat at the table in global energy markets, they would do well not to stop at the Karoo, but start attracting investment for green technologies as well in order to get a foothold in a more renewable future.
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