New draft fracking rules spark fresh debate

Public comment deadline extended as concerns raised about risks to fragile Karoo Basin

- Sheree Bega

The newly-appointed minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, Willie Aucamp, has extended the public comment period for South Africa’s proposed environmental regulations governing commercial fracking.

On 7 November, shortly before his dismissal, former environment minister Dion George opened a 30-day public comment period on draft regulations governing the exploration and production of onshore petroleum resources that require hydraulic fracturing. The draft regulations set out how fracking would be authorised, monitored and restricted. Separate regulations are expected to be gazetted by the water and sanitation minister.

On 1 December, Aucamp announced in the Government Gazette that the comment period had now been extended to 13 February 2026.

South Africa first imposed a fracking moratorium in 2011 after public outcry and litigation from environmental groups, who were alarmed by risks to the arid and fragile Karoo Basin. That moratorium is ostensibly lifted.

“Once those regulations [published by George] are gazetted, I lift the moratorium,” Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe told Reuters in October. “The economy needs a growth trigger, and oil and gas are those triggers.”

In July, Mantashe told Parliament that “mining can’t be killed for the sake of fresh air” as he championed the revival of Karoo shale gas, News24 reported. South Africa, he said, would run short of gas by 2027, yet “our behaviour reflects a nation that doesn’t want to save itself ... We talk about the drying up of gas resources in Mozambique, but we don’t talk about our own resources”.

At the time, the Climate Justice Coalition said: “The minister’s comments that ‘we can’t kill mining for fresh air are particularly provocative, especially given that fresh air is not a luxury that we can do without ... We stand by our position that fracking is not a solution, it is a threat.