The Resource Management Department is responsible for evaluating and quantifying the oil and gas potential of South Africa that can be developed through current exploration and production technology. This department is tasked with the identification of exploration opportunities and for facilitating the entry of new explorers into the South African upstream industry.

The department also works very closely with our operators in understanding the geology and prospectivity of areas under exploration. A major responsibility is the upkeep of a quantified and risked inventory of exploration opportunities. While technical team members are involved in projects in all basins around the coast and onshore, each also specialises in a particular area and/or field of interest.

Over the last few years, as interest in South Africa’s offshore has increased and more acreage has been taken up, the department’s focus has shifted towards in-depth geological and geophysical studies on a basin-wide scale, with a view to achieving a fuller understanding of the petroleum geology. This approach will allow us to assist and support our explorers in their own geological and geophysical work. The assessment of the petroleum potential of the deep and ultra-deep offshore areas is becoming increasingly important.

The department is also responsible for the evaluation and promotion of South Africa’s unconventional gas resources, including shale gas, coal-bed methane, deep basin biogenic gas and gas hydrates. These are new and exciting areas of exploration about which relatively little is known and can therefore truly be considered ‘frontier’ or greenfield exploration.

Our evaluation of South Africa’s unconventional gas resources is based both on geographic distribution and play-type, with a specialist geologist associated with each.
Together with the Chief Geologist, the department is also responsible for executing the Agency’s mandate to delimit South Africa’s claim for an extended continental shelf beyond the current 200 nautical mile limit to the Exclusive Economic Zone.