After the Bell: Is this the moment to drill, baby, drill?

I sometimes feel almost assailed, even assaulted, by headlines that are about something that is going to have an impact on me.

Especially when it’s about things so far away that we can do nothing about them.

I don’t know if you’ve done the maths for yourself, but it is becoming clear that you and I are going to have to pay a lot more for fuel as a result of the conflict around Iran.

While we can shout and scream about Donald Trump and Iran and oil and the whole bang shoot, frankly, we might have to start making hard decisions about how we move things around in the future.

Yesterday, in his prepared speaking notes for the Oil and Gas Conference in Cape Town, Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe had a full go at environmental groups.

In his view we have ample natural oil resources, but, “regrettably, we have not yet been able to fully explore and exploit this potential due to ongoing blockages against oil and gas development in the name of environmental protection”.

Interestingly, he also said the environment minister would soon gazette changes to some of the regulations around exploration and fracking.

And almost immediately after that he said he would start making it easier for companies to drill (why do I always want to write the words “baby drill” after that?).

There is no doubt he is a fan of fossil fuels; he has said many, many times that he believes we need to go this route.

This could well be his moment.

Oil prices are through the roof and the danger of being dependent on other parts of the world is suddenly burningly obvious.

Never has the argument that we should produce our own oil been stronger.

And, crucially, Mantashe may have an environment minister who will give him the go-ahead.

We still don’t really know why John Steenhuisen decided he had to have Dion George removed and replaced with Willie Aucamp, but Aucamp certainly seems to be much more minded in Mantashe’s direction.

I must be fair to the man, we don’t know that for sure, and he must speak for himself on the issue.

And, there is a long history of debate in the DA on fracking. In 2012 it opposed it and there could be arguments now in the party if this subject is revived.

But, if you are one of the very few people not affected by fuel prices, one of those with an electric car, well, perhaps you’d look at that argument and just laugh.

So many of our companies are now powered by solar.

Every big group that owns shopping centres will tell you proudly in their annual results how much power they produce themselves, and how much they’re saving.

If you buy one of those overpriced but still wonderful winter desserts from Woolworths and take it home, you are probably using more carbon driving it to your fridge than they spent getting it there.

Seriously, they use electric trucks to deliver a lot of their stuff.

And the reason all these companies are doing this is because the price of coal-generated electricity is now so high that it’s just cheaper.

The same thing is happening in non-lefty Texas. It’s nothing to do with politics, it’s all about economics.

One of the important nuances of our current situation is that we once used to refine a lot more of our own oil.

We refine less now because of one Act of God (the KZN flooding, which completely wrecked the Sapref Refinery) and many decisions by regulators and capitalists

For the owners of these facilities it has just not made commercial sense to upgrade them and keep them running.

They’ve decided, as so many companies here have, that you can keep buying South African or you can buy what you need for a lot less if it’s Made in China.

And for them, for their shareholders, and I suppose in a way for their customers, they’ve made the choice they had to.

So, if you look at the state of our industry, you could argue, as others have already done, that the current situation, in which we are dependent on a conflict we have nothing to do with and over which we have no power, means we need to cut our dependence on that product.

That we must go hard-renewable.

But you could also argue that, actually, we must just drill baby, drill (there, now I feel better). Let’s stick with what we know.

And besides, electric cars are still a long way from being able to tow your trailer, bicycles and teenagers’ kit from Joburg to Plett in a single day.

My gut, particularly when thinking of the longer-term future, is to argue that we must go hard-renewable. Like, everyone get solar and an electric car now.

My brain, slightly less dependent than my gut, says no, we’re just not there yet.

This is really an argument about our children. Our great-grandchildren surely won’t be using petrocarbons, they’ll be using solar and who knows what.

However, the planet our children will live on might well depend on the decisions we make now. DM