By Eamonn Ryan
This is a two-part series. Part one examines the supply-side constraints, including domestic reserves, pipeline dependence, and Mozambique’s LNG projects, providing context for why South Africa is facing a potential gas shortage. Part two will explore the sectoral implications, highlighting how gas scarcity and price volatility are driving the shift toward electrification, heat pumps, solar integration, and other innovative HVAC&R solutions that offer resilience and energy efficiency in an uncertain gas market.
South Africa’s gas landscape is undergoing a profound shift that carries major implications for the HVAC&R and industrial cooling sectors. For years, the country has relied on a combination of limited domestic reserves and pipeline imports from Mozambique. This system has, until now, supported a moderate gas user base dominated by industrial process heat, gas-fired hot-water systems, and specialised cooling and heating applications. However, the imminent decline of Mozambique’s Pande–Temane fields and the absence of sufficient domestic gas alternatives have precipitated what is widely referred to as the national ‘gas cliff’ – a sudden and ongoing reduction in available natural gas supply expected from around 2026 to 2028.
Although a common narrative suggests that South Africa is ‘running out of gas’, the reality is more nuanced. The country does possess some domestic reserves – roughly 27–30 billion cubic metres have been identified offshore – but these are comparatively modest in relation to national demand and require significant investment in production and infrastructure before they could materially impact supply. Several offshore discoveries, notably Brulpadda and Luiperd, raised expectations, but they remain uncommercialised, with investment conditions uncertain and at least one major player having relinquished acreage due to economic challenges. Meanwhile, long-depleted fields that once fed PetroSA’s Mossgas GTL plant illustrate how historical domestic sources have dwindled.
The more immediate constraint arises from South Africa’s dependence on imported pipeline gas from Mozambique. The ROMPCO pipeline, which has long supplied the Gauteng and Mpumalanga industrial belts, draws its gas primarily from the Pande–Temane fields. These fields are now entering natural decline, with expert assessments placing the most significant tapering of supply in the second half of the decade. This decline is now severe enough that Sasol has moved to develop a bridging strategy: redirecting methane-rich synthetic gas from its Secunda operations to sustain part of the network. But this intervention is temporary and is expected to cover only the 2028–2030 window. Beyond that, unless new supply is secured, both industrial and commercial gas users face a period of constrained availability and likely price volatility.
At the same time, Mozambique is progressing some of the largest LNG projects in the world – developments that could eventually reshape the regional gas market. The Rovuma Basin holds well over 100 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas, and TotalEnergies’ USD20-billion Area 1 project in Cabo Delgado, although delayed since 2021 due to security instability, is now positioned to resume activity. The restart is significant because Area 1, together with Eni’s floating LNG vessels – the operational Coral Sul FLNG and the newly approved Coral Norte FLNG – will massively expand Mozambique’s liquefaction and export capacity.
Coral Norte, in particular, is noteworthy for allocating a quarter of its LNG output to Mozambique’s domestic market, potentially easing regional shortages. However, these projects have long lead times. With first exports from the onshore plant expected only around 2029–2030, Mozambique’s LNG boom will arrive too late to prevent South Africa’s gas cliff, though it may play an essential stabilising role in the decade thereafter.
Sources:
All information in this article is sourced from the following materials:
- City Energy: overview of South Africa’s gas resources and reserve estimates.
- Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA): Natural Gas Briefing Paper (2016) – South African reserve estimates and supply constraints.
- Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE): Gas Master Plan Basecase Report – national gas demand and supply dynamics.
- Actuarial Society of South Africa: briefing on South Africa’s electricity and gas system, noting depletion of certain domestic fields.
- Mail & Guardian: analysis of South Africa’s reliance on Mozambique and implications for energy security.
- FurtherAfrica: report on Mozambique gas decline and South Africa’s supply risks.
- Sunday Times (TimesLIVE): warnings from industry bodies regarding the imminent ‘gas cliff’.
- News24 (Chris Yelland): coverage of Sasol’s synthetic-gas bridging plan for 2028–2030.
- Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS): policy briefing on domestic gas discoveries and commercialisation challenges.
- Reuters: reports on TotalEnergies’ exit from South African offshore Block 11B/12B and the status of gas investments.
- BusinessTech: analysis of gas-supply risks and the electricity–gas interplay in South Africa.
- Press reporting and company statements on Coral Sul FLNG, Coral Norte FLNG and TotalEnergies’ Area 1 LNG project in Mozambique.