South Africa is committed to shale gas exploration, says Mantashe

Oh really? Mastering shale requires a bit more than a drilling crew and the shale resource in place. I won’t go through the entire list as it’s long and varied. But let’s just focus on two aspects that made shale a success in the US and nearly nowhere else. Entrepreneurialism and the ownership of subsoil resources by the title holder and not the government. That’s pretty unique in the US. You own the subsoil there and hence have an incentive to cooperate. In other countries where the subsoil belongs to the government, landowners will resist if they feel unfairly compensated for the right to use the surface. Oh, and entrepreneurship is dead and buried in South Africa. 

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