natural gas

The deep-water Port of Ngqura in the Eastern Cape has officially opened, and is set to become an important link between the world's east and west trade routes.
• Automotive boost for Eastern Cape

BMW South Africa has started production of the new 3 Series sedan at its Rosslyn plant outside Pretoria following a R2.2-billion upgrade that has significantly increased production capacity, allowing the company to more than double its exports of the sedan from South Africa.

A Chinese investment company is to buy carbon credits from a Johannesburg brick factory registered under the Kyoto Protocol's emissions trading scheme to offset the travel of over 750 UN-sponsored delegates to COP 17 in Durban.

South Africa will probably continue to make use of coal as its primary source of energy, but will increasingly explore clean energy initiatives as it moves towards a lower-carbon economy, says Energy Minister Dipuo Peters.

Italian and US companies have announced the discovery of massive natural gas fields off Mozambique in the last month, promising huge long-term benefits for Mozambique, and potentially significant spin-off benefits for neighbouring South Africa.

South African petrochemical giant Sasol has entered into a joint venture with Australia's Origin Energy, forming a new company that has acquired three licences to explore for coal bed methane gas in Botswana.

South Africa has signed a work plan with the International Energy Agency that will see the country moving closer to realising its objectives on cleaner energy.

In what is seen as an important milestone, South African petrochemicals giant Sasol and its partners have signed an investment agreement with the government of Uzbekistan for the development of a gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in that country.

South African petrochemicals giant Sasol has chosen a location in south-western Louisiana as the site for what could be the first plant in the US to produce gas-to-liquid (GTL) transportation fuels and other products.

The Absa Campus, located in downtown Johannesburg and home to the bank's headquarters, consumes at least 12MW of electricity a day - but hardly any of this is drawn from South Africa's national grid.