Transnet Pipelines CEO is confident gas cliff can be avoided

South Africa is slowly edging back from the edge of the gas cliff that could tip the economy into free fall.

One key link in this chain is Transnet Pipelines. Most South Africans are aware of the state-owned enterprise’s (SOE’s) rail and ports role, but its pipelines are also crucial for the transport of the fuel that keeps the economy moving.

The Pande-Temane gas fields in Mozambique are nearing the end of their life and Sasol announced last year that from June 2026, it would, as a result, no longer be able to supply gas to industrial users and traders in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

Read more: Understanding the looming ‘gas cliff’ in South Africa, and the solutions

One of the measures to address this potential crisis is the Zululand Energy Terminal project in Richards Bay which will be developed by the Dutch-based Vopak Terminal Durban and Transnet Pipelines consortium.

This terminal will be used to handle liquified natural gas (LNG) imports and is being built in the nick of time.

In a presentation to the AOW Investing in African Energy conference, Transnet Pipelines’ chief executive, Sibongiseni Khathi, said the final investment decision was expected in the first quarter of 2026, with commercial operations expected to commence in 2028.

“At the ministerial level, there is support to make sure that we can avoid the gas cliff. From that point of view we are confident,” said Khathi at a press briefing at AOW.

In the not-too-distant past, the South African public might not have been confident about the confidence of a Transnet unit.

But the SOE seems to have been given an energy boost under CEO Michelle Phillips and is rolling out initiatives at a pace to arrest the rot that had set in over the years, hampering its key role in South Africa's economy.

The Lilly gas pipeline from Secunda to Durban is being repurposed to transport regasified LNG from methane-rich gas and to tap into the Richards Bay facility via a new intake station at Empangeni.

Gas is a major theme at this year’s AOW and South Africa is not lacking for import options from the continent, given the swelling pipeline of gas projects in Africa.

The development of domestic gas sources remains stuck in a rut in the wake of TotalEnergies' decision to pull the plug on its Brulpadda and Luiperd gas projects off South Africa’s south coast on the grounds that they were not commercially viable.

Read more: TotalEnergies pulled out of Brulpadda-Luiperd gas projects over pricing, parliamentary committee told 

But at least the prospects of a gas cliff seem to be receding. DM