TEEPSA - Deep Water Orange Basin (DWOB) Exploration Drilling EIA off the West Coast of South Africa

TotalEnergies EP South Africa S.A.S. (TEEPSA) is the operator of, and holder of an Exploration Right (ER) for, Licence Block Deep Water Orange Basin (DWOB) (see black outline in adjacent figure). Block DWOB is about 200 km from the shore in very deep water (2 000 m and 3 200 m deep) between Port Nolloth and Saldanha Bay.

In 2023, TEEPSA received authorisation to explore for oil and gas in the northern part of the Licence Block. TEEPSA now want to explore for oil and gas in a new Area of Interest within the southern part of the Licence Block. The Area of Interest (AoI; yellow shaded area) where TEEPSA plan to explore is almost 15 000 km2.

TEEPSA is planning to do several activities to explore this area:

• Exploration drilling of up to seven wells to find out if there is oil and gas;
• Vertical seismic profiling; VSP (Use special equipment to check the wells);
• Testing the wells to learn more about the oil and gas; and
• Plugging and abandonment (seal the wells when they are done).

Prior to commencing with activities, TEEPSA must obtain permission, an Environmental Authorisation; EA,in terms of the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2014, (GN R 982 of 2014), promulgated under the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (No. 107 of 1998), from the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR). As part of this process, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) must be completed. SLR Consulting (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd (SLR), an independent firm of Environmental Assessment Practitioners, has been appointed by TEEPSA to manage the environmental authorisation processes.

Status

Interested and Affected Party Registration Period

Notice is hereby given, in terms of the EIA Regulations, 2014 promulgated under NEMAof the opportunity for members of the public to register as Interested and Affected Parties (I&APs). If you would like to receive updates and information about the project, please register your contact details by following the instruction in the Background Information Document (BID). The BID has been provided in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa for download. In addition, short videos explaining the EIA process have been provided in the same languages.

By providing your personal information to submit a comment, you will be included in the SLR an Interested and Affected Party (I&AP) database, and you consent to SLR managing your information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013. It is assumed that as an I&AP for this Project you authorise SLR to retain and use your Personal Information as part of a contact database for this and/or other Social and Environmental Impact Assessments (ESIA) and that you confirm your acceptance for SLR to contact you regarding this and/or other ESIA processes. SLR will not process your Personal Information, other than as permitted or required by ESIA processes, or as required by law or public policy. SLR will use reasonable, appropriate security safeguards to protect Personal Information, and to reasonably prevent any damage to, loss of, or unauthorised access or disclosure of Personal Information, other than as required for ESIA processes or as required by any Law or public policy. You may request for your Personal Information to be deleted from the I&AP database at any time by contacting SLR.