Working Lunch: Dumplings, gas and our energy crisis

You couldn’t make it up. As I was sitting down to lunch with one of SA’s foremost energy experts the power cut out, and we were left in the dark for a few seconds before the mall’s generator started up. Eskom had struck again.

We needed a drink and decided to share a bottle of the youthful but refreshing Secateurs Chenin Blanc 2022. From our arrival to departure, the welcome and service at the Red Chamber was exceptionally friendly.

The steamed pork dumplings were excellent, the sesame prawn toast with sweet chilli sauce was outstanding, and the Won Ton soup was good. Hunger pangs abated, I tried to find out more about Niall Kramer, who until very recently headed SAOGA, the SA Oil and Gas Alliance.

A Capetonian, he started his career teaching art, but after 10 years he must have been a bit restless as he applied for a job in corporate training at Caltex. “I wasn’t a good fit, but they graciously accommodated me and moved me to public affairs and corporate affairs,” he recalled.

As the firm underwent a series of restructuring exercises, Kramer worked in Singapore, Thailand and New Zealand, before returning to Cape Town to run the company’s integrated marketing operation for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. There were mergers and some juggling of brands and ownership, and in the end the entity employing him was Chevron.

Then, out of the blue, Shell came along, and he went to work for it on fracking in the Karoo. “It was very interesting, and filled with polarised debate,” he remembered.

He then worked in a unit set up by the then department of trade & industry to develop draft policy on how indigenous gas could be used to reindustrialise a rapidly deindustrialised country. “I came into contact with SAOGA directors, and then went on to run SAOGA.”

By this time the starters had been devoured, and it was time for a treat to share — half a Peking Duck. Traditionally, this would be served in three courses, but I wasn’t going to complain when a pile of meat and thinly shaved crispy skin was served with pancakes, cucumber, spring onion and plum sauce.

It was a do-it yourself operation, and my skill (some would say awful manners) soon put me in the lead. What an inspired dish. Soon the food was gone, we were satiated, but still had enough energy to talk about, er, energy.    

So, what about fossil fuels, including oil and gas, being thought of as the number one enemy in the destruction of the planet? How could Kramer defend such a controversial industry?

“The bigger issue is being masked by a debate around renewables versus oil and gas. The simple fact is we will need all forms of energy — especially renewables,” he countered. “There is still going to be a huge need for oil and gas in power, petrochemicals and transport. Diesel moves the trucks around because the rail isn’t working. It is frightening.

“That debate could be masking the real issue in SA, which is embedded criminality — from the governing party, through the SOEs [state-owned enterprise] — and until we get to grips with that criminality, it frankly doesn’t matter what the source is. Criminals will move in to operate in whatever forms of energy that will emerge.

“It’s a prerequisite that we deal with this. The ANC is obsessed with internal navel-gazing to protect their own patches. The biggest issue we are facing right now is criminality, ineptitude, and a government that is not governing.”

And while SA may be getting it wrong, he suggested, we should watch out as some of our neighbours are getting it right.

“There have been exciting finds off the west coast of Namibia, in fields which extend down to the waters off SA’s own west coast.

“We should stop having discussions about whether you are socialist or capitalist; pragmatism delivers results and Namibia is pointing that out to us,” he added, referring to often successful efforts by coastal communities and environmentalists in SA to keep the oil and gas companies at bay.

“In Mozambique, we should admire what’s happening — from their pragmatism to bring explorers in to find oil and gas. And it’s likely that the same geology will yield as you come down across KwaZulu-Natal to the SA south coast, and the west coast.”

However, he accepts that communities need to be consulted, that their needs and interests must be considered and that they are brought on board. “Exploring companies have followed the letter of the law, but is the law on consultation adequate? My hope is that the industry and the environmentalists don’t continue to see this as a winner takes all situation — both sides can win. The alternative is poverty.”

Kramer was insistent that SA cannot afford to take too radical a stance in defeating climate change, at the cost of our own fragile economy. “We should renegotiate the climate agreements. We need a trade-off between climate and energy.

“You don’t want a pristine world with no energy, and even if you do want it, it’s not going to happen.

“In SA, if you think the current load-shedding is bad, wait until you close down fossil fuels and try to run a modern economy with renewables.

“If we had more gas in the system, you could switch it on like a gas braai. If the sun is down, you just don’t get [solar] power, and storage won’t give you enough to take it through the night. Gas is the best backup.

“We don’t have fully tested batteries at scale, you need to run an economy on tested technology. You need that backup power, and renewables can’t deliver it at scale commercially.

“Gas is way better than coal, it’s cheaper and with half the emissions. It is a very necessary and effective step in the transition, while batteries and other technologies are developed.”

We are already exploring offshore for gas, and importing supplies by pipeline from Mozambique, but could fracking give us all the gas we need?

“Fracking definitely has a future, but not necessary in SA,” said Kramer. “We need more research to get the data. Beaufort West is one of the perfect spots to find it. The shale level is there, but has the gas already escaped?”

He noted that fracking is the technology that turned the US around in president Barack Obama’s days. “It is now a net energy exporter, having overtaken the Saudis.”

With no room for dessert, we wound up our chat with me asking why, when he has lived in so many other interesting and enjoyable places, Kramer has settled in SA.

“Nowhere is blemish free,” he argued. “When you move to a different environment — for tax, or business prospects, or employment or lifestyle, things are not always as you might expect.

“I have never met a sadder species than South Africans who are living abroad and are busy trashing SA. I have heard them tell so many exaggerated stories around SA fraud and corruption that I just know are not true — to justify the decisions they have made. 

“SA is a very exciting place, with so many different people and approaches. It generates creativity, and an innovative set of possibilities. Having said all that, the prospect of a collapsed state is realistic.”

With the power having returned (for a few hours), we paid up and left.