S. Africa’s Search For Oil

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31339, 8 April 1967, Page 5

S. Africa’s Search For Oil

(By RON ANDERSON in the “Sydney Morning Herald") (Reprinted by arrangement)

JOHANNESBURG Suddenly South Africa has launched a massive ■earch for oil. Major oil companies from all parts of the world are being spurred on by the Government to find oil which would give the country a tremendous economic boost and which would also be of great strategic

Importance. The search has become vital now because of United Nations threats to impose oil boycotts on South Africa.

The fact that the Prime Minister, Mr Vorster, has set a huge oil-drilling rig in motion indicates the importance the Government attaches to the search. The British-inspired oil boycott of Rhodesia (although only partially successful) has shown how effective this weapon can be. If South Africa attracts additional United Nations disfavour over the South West Africa issue, she could be in a similar predicament So the search is on, both on land and at sea. The searchers are being inspired more by optimism than by

any real dues that there is in fact ail waiting to be tapped. Some geologists have almost said the eearch la futile.

A spokesman for eno of the biggest American oil exploration firms has said they have never started a search with fewer Indications of oti. But the Government is undaunted. It has formed a company called Soekor (“soek” in Afrikaans means search) to coordinate the programme.

Arid Region Soekor has Imported one of the largest drilling rigs in the world from the Persian Gulf to drill in the arid Karoo region of the Cape. This drill was started by Dr. Verwoerd shortly before his

In addition, numbers of private companies are drilling with small rigs all over the country, but mainly in the Cape and in Zululand. Wild rumours of strikes keep on running through the country. Now the search has been extended to the continental shelf off the South African coast Recently seven companies have been given concessions to search in specific areas. Practically all major oil companies are represented in the consortiums.

Most of the experts being consulted by the South African Government are Americans. They have all stressed that the explorations will be "wild cat” operations as nothing is known of the geology of the continental shelf.

It has often been stressed that oil is the major "missing link” in the South African economy. The country spends about gIOO-mlllion ! every year buying oil. South Africa has gold and i diamonds, iron and copper, ' wool and fruit It has almost everything except oil. Probably the Government is quite right to spend many millions of dollars in the search for the one commodity which could make South Africa a self-sufficient industrial giant. Even if South Africa does not find oil, the indications are that oil exists in payable quantities in Portuguese territory to the north. Thera are strong political ties between the two countries. Meanwhile South Africa is preparing to meet any oil boycott. Storage facilities are being built to the extent that some experts say that two years* supply of oil is already in stock. The Government says nothing.