Sasol announces joint application with Statoil ASA and Chesapeake Energy Corporation for onshore petroleum Exploration Right in South Africa

 
Sasol, through Sasol Petroleum International (SPI) the wholly owned upstream oil and gas subsidiary of Sasol Limited, today announced a joint application with Statoil ASA and Chesapeake Energy Corporation for an onshore petroleum Exploration Right in South Africa. The Exploration Right application was officially submitted to the Petroleum Agency (SA) Ltd today and it is expected that it will take approximately 12 months to process.
 
The application is subject to the consideration and the approval of the South African government. If the Exploration Right is successfully awarded, the applicants will jointly commit to an exploration work programme.
 
The proposed exploration effort will be focused on finding potentially commercial recoverable shale gas resources in the Karoo Basin in the central region of South Africa.
 
Shale gas is natural gas produced from shale, a type of sedimentary rock formed from clay. Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States over the past decade, and interest has spread to potential gas shales in Canada and Europe and now also in South Africa. The Karoo Basin in South Africa has unproved shale gas potential and significant exploration efforts are required to assess this prospective resource.
 
The companies involved in this joint exploration venture are world leaders in oil and gas exploration.
 
Sasol Petroleum International develops and manages Sasol's upstream interests in oil and gas exploration and production in a number of countries SPI also pursues gas exploration opportunities to enable it to supply feedstock to potential Sasol Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) plants.
 
Statoil is an international energy company with operations in 40 countries building on more than 35 years of experience from oil and gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf. Statoil is headquartered in Norway with 30,000 employees worldwide, and is listed on the New York and Oslo stock exchanges.
 
Chesapeake Energy Corporation is a Fortune 500 company with an enterprise value of more than USD 30 billion, has more than 8,000 employees, is the world's most active driller of horizontal shale wells, and is the second largest natural gas producer in the USA. Chesapeake Energy Corporation has a significant acreage position in the four largest shale plays in the USA and uses proprietary shale gas technology to successfully explore and produce shale gas.
 
ENDS