- Title
- Exploration, monetization, disillusion: a history of upstream oil development in the onshore Algoa basin
- Creator
- James, Jonathan Scott
- ThesisAdvisor
- Baines, Gary
- Date
- 2016
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/3870
- Identifier
- vital:20551
- Description
- The onshore Algoa basin has, since the mid-1960s, been an area of interest for oil and gas exploration. Despite the general lack of knowledge and publicly available information on the topic, a large amount of geological and geophysical data has been collected on the region owing to the oil and gas exploration. The intended aim of this thesis is to compile and construct a historical narrative of the oil and gas exploration that took place within the onshore Algoa basin, and to then contextualize that localized narrative within the greater macro-narrative of the global oil and gas industry. This thesis is primarily concerned with the time period beginning in the early 1960s up to mid-2014, however reference is also made to events pre-1960. For the purposes of compartmentalizing the various areas of research covered, the thesis has been divided into three broad areas of interest: the geology of the onshore Algoa basin, the global oil market and its impact on exploration therein, and the attempts to monetize the leases that came to be purchased post-exploration. The narrative on the geology of the onshore Algoa basin is aimed at providing a summarized account of the most important details pertaining to the search for petroleum systems in simplified, yet accurate, language. The aspects of the geology which command the most attention are those which are necessary in functioning petroleum systems such as suitable permeabilities, porosities, reservoir rocks, trapping mechanisms and cap rocks. The global oil and gas market is also used to contextualize the search for oil and gas within the onshore Algoa basin and is explained against the backdrop of the global oil trade and the sanctions imposed on the apartheid state. Furthermore, the analysis of the attempts to monetize leases within the onshore Algoa basin will provide a financial reference point to the shortcomings of the exploration and monetization efforts. The purpose of this thesis is to construct a historical narrative of the onshore Algoa basin which not only gives an accurate portrayal of the exploration efforts that have taken place thus far, but to also provide a enough detail of those exploration efforts to indicate the future of the onshore Algoa basin as an exploration play.
- Format
- 159 leaves, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, History
- Language
- English
- Rights
- James, Jonathan Scott
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