South Africa’s Petroleum Reforms Open the Orange Basin to Drilling

Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources of the Republic of South Africa, has been confirmed as a featured speaker at the upcoming African Energy Week (AEW) 2026 Conference and Exhibition, where he is expected to lay out the reform agenda reshaping the country’s upstream oil and gas sector and its drive to convert long-stranded offshore gas into production.

South Africa is pursuing one of the most significant upstream overhauls in its history, anchored by a new law that gives oil and gas their own regulatory regime for the first time. The reforms position the host nation as both a destination for exploration capital and a future producer along an Atlantic margin that has drawn the world’s largest oil companies to the region.

At the middle of the shift is the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Act (UPRDA), which President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law in October 2024. The Act separates petroleum from the mining statute that has long regulated both sectors. It also creates a single petroleum right covering exploration and production along with a 20% carried interest for the state. The UPRDA awaits a presidential proclamation to take effect, and implementing regulations that went through a further round of industry comment in early 2026 are now being finalized.

Mantashe has emerged as the most forceful advocate for accelerating the sector. He has long-argued that South Africa must shift from importing refined products to producing its own, warning that dependence on foreign supply leaves the economy exposed to global price shocks. This shift becomes increasingly more importance in the current global climate, where supply security has become a major challenge – particularly for import-reliance economies such as South Africa. As such, Mantashe has repeatedly pressed for faster licensing and fewer legal delays to exploration. AEW 2026 is a key platform to bring this discussion to a global audience.

“South Africa has the geology for exploration. Now it is building the regulatory certainty it needs to turn discoveries into bankable projects,” said NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. “A clear petroleum framework and a credible state partner are what international capital needs to commit to the Orange Basin.”

Offshore, TotalEnergies – operator of Block 3B/4B in the Orange Basin – is preparing to begin drilling in South African waters in 2026 pending final regulatory approvals. The acreage sits on trend with the Venus discovery in neighboring Namibia, where TotalEnergies is developing the basin’s first oil project.

Onshore, momentum is building in Mpumalanga, where gas developer Kinetiko Energy’s Amersfoort project has logged sustained high-flow results and is advancing plans for an LNG pilot plant. Mantashe has also signaled that government is moving to lift the long-standing moratorium on shale gas development, with the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) estimating recoverable Karoo reserves at 209 tcf.

Mantashe is also expected to report on successes of the South African National Petroleum Company (SANPC), the state entity formed in May 2025 through the merger of PetroSA, iGas and the Strategic Fuel Fund. Positioned as the country’s petroleum champion, SANPC is intended to anchor state participation across the value chain as South Africa works toward 6 GW of gas-fired power by 2030.

As AEW 2026 prepares to convene policymakers, investors and operators at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from October 12-16, Mantashe’s address carries added weight as the host nation’s signal to the market. His message is expected to be direct: South Africa is open for upstream investment and ready to move from potential to production.

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Africa Fact: The human race is of African origin. The oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens sapiens) were excavated at sites in East Africa. Human remains were discovered at Omo in Ethiopia that were dated at 195,000 years old, the oldest known in the world.