Cadres getting their hands dirty in the oil business

By Corrie Kruger

Surely any robbery must be done in the dark and only the weak is exposed to it.

And in the odd chance of it happening, it is never to be repeated to protect the national family jewels.

In order to prevent damage and or theft it was thought good idea to promulgate a specific Act to ensure extraordinary precautions are taken

On January 23 2015 The Right2Know Campaign (R2K) and the South African History Archive (SAHA) applaud the Ministry of Police’s decision to make the list of National Key Points public.

R2K organiser Murray Hunter said the release of the list would be useful in further campaigns.

“Now that the list is public, R2K will use it to help the public to identify and challenge abuses of the law in all nine provinces. We see national key points being used as an excuse to shield government and the private sector alike from accountability.”

One such National key point details are:-OTMS Tank Farm.

Project data from the Peri Group, Location: Saldanha, South Africa, South Africa.

The PERI brand has stood for cutting-edge technology, innovative strength and close customer proximity.

With entrepreneurial thinking, reliability and our passion for our customers, we have become one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of formwork and scaffolding systems.

The company undertook the construction and design of 12 concrete underground tanks being built, each of which is 110 by 110 meters, as large as two football fields.

A total of 13.2 million barrels of oil can be stored there.

A total of 150,000 cubic meters of concrete was used, equivalent to the contents of more than 60 Olympic swimming pools.

PERI was extensively involved from early design stages up to completion. The OTMS tank structures called for a unique design to construct the columns, walls and slabs.

Sloping slabs on top of 17 columns, as well as the sloping floors presented design challenges.

This quite remarkable technical achievement was made useless as revealed in court proceedings that the CEF and SFF Board launched after it discovered that the former CEO of the Strategic Fuel Fund, Sibusiso Gamede, unlawfully concluded a series of agreements, which resulted in the disposal of South Africa’s 10 million barrels of Strategic Crude Oil Reserves

A statement from the CEF stated that all traders have agreed that the sale of the strategic crude oil reserves were invalid, and as part of the high court settlement, the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), a subsidiary of CEF, would refund all monies paid to it with interest accrued.

I can only wonder whose money is going to be used to do such repayment. What are the consequences to the individuals involved?

This is criminal activity if ever there is such a thing at a SOE.

There should be orange overalls and very long sentences that goes with the overall. If cable theft can result in jail time so should this illegal activity involving State Assets.

The graph below is not indicative of ignorance or incompetence but rather malicious and looks all too familiar in the light of state capture and corruption and a flagrant disregard for the wellbeing of all of South African’s citizens.

The graph below illustrates at what point the Minister thought it good to sell the national reserve. The Petrol price at that stage was R12 per litre.

We now pay R25 per litre!

From this magnificent storage facility President Jacob Zuma and his Minister of Energy authorized the sale of South Africa’s strategic energy reserves at the rock bottom price of $38.

The above situation is almost as weird and outright scandalous as the case of the Ogies Mine Oil deposits.

A R200-million contract was given to a small oil solutions company, Enviroshore Trade and Logistics, which was tasked with recovering fuel that had been stored by the previous government at the Ogies coal mine in Mpumalanga.

It is estimated that the quantity of crude oil stored was adequate for three years of usage for the SA economy at the time.

Current reserves are limited to three weeks usage Enviroshore is owned by Eugene Makhaye and Arthur Potts.

A report into the sale of state assets by the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) contains damning revelations of how the state entity squandered the state’s oil reserves.

Minister Mmamoloko Kublai’s made no effort to investigate the report by law firm Allen & Overy In March 2017, President Jacob Zuma appointed her as the new Minister of Energy.

She succeeded Tina Joemat-Pettersson.

Her appointment was seen as advancement for the implementation of the controversial nuclear deal. She briefly served until October 2017 when she was named Minister of Communications.

They made a finding that the accounting officer and the board should be held accountable for an invalid R200-million contract.

Kubayi said the matter needed investigation and recommendations from the SFF’s mother body, the Central Energy Fund (CEF), before she takes action. The CEF commissioned and investigation, which reviewed several fuel trading and sale contracts that had been flagged for irregularities.

As previously reported by The Sunday Tribune in March, Absa brought a liquidation application against Uwoyela Environmental Services (UES), a company owned by Durban businessman Terry Rosenberg and his family. UES, previously known as Enviroshore Trade and Logistics, (a subsidiary of the Rosenberg-owned Oakbrook Holdings). The company received work orders from the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) to remove sludge and reclaim more than five million barrels of crude oil. What has become of this initiative? South Africa is desperate for energy solutions but we are kept bin the dark relating to matters such of such national importance. Is there more corruption being swept under the carpet, the same carpet as the sale of the other strategic fuel reserves?

What does the future hold? What is yet to be revealed?

The Brulpadda discovery.

“It is potentially a major boost for the economy,” mineral resources minister Gwede Manthashe said in a statement.

Outeniqua Basin sits 175 km off the southern coast of South Africa and is seen as a relief for Africa most industrialised nation which imports huge amount of oil and petroleum products.

The Brulpadda well encountered 57 meters of net gas condensate pay in Lower Cretaceous reservoirs. Following the success of the main objective, the well was deepened to a final depth of 3,633 meters and has also been successful in the Brulpadda-deep prospect.

“We are very pleased to announce the Brulpadda discovery which was drilled in a challenging Deepwater environment”, said Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President Exploration at Total. “With this discovery, Total has opened a new world-class gas and oil play and is well positioned to test several follow-on prospects on the same block. Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne was quoted by Reuters saying the gas discovery could contain 1 billion barrels of total resources and is probably quite big.