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Jul 16, 2012 / in Blog Articles

You have to believe it. Fracking for shale gas in the Karoo is going to happen. The environmentalists can stand on the heads but there is no way that they can stop it. Big bucks will win out.In case you don’t know, fracking is American for “hydraulic fracturing” whereby underground rock is fractured under high pressure using millions of liters of water, chemicals and sand. Once the rocks are fractured the shale gas is released. Shale or natural gas is the cleanest burning conventional fuel…far cleaner than oil or coal…currently it is also far cheaper.According to the the US Energy Information Administration (IEA) the shale gas reserves of the southern Karoo are an estimated 485 tillion cubic feet (tcf), making it potentially the fifth largest in the world. And when you translate that into money you will understand why the “tree huggers,” no matter how well intentioned and strong their case, just cannot prevail.So how much of a cash cow is Karoo gas likely to be? Econometrix estimate (based on 10% of the 485 tcf) that there would be an annual economic impact of R212 billion (at USDZAR 8.0000) over a 25 year period which would generate an extimted 700 000 permanent jobs. Think about the fact that this kind of money would be almost 10% of 2010 GDP. Do you doubt that fracking is going to happen?The biggest fear that the environmentalists have is the contamination of water. We at Filcon Filters are prepared to provide whatever filtration equipment and water treatment is needed. Filcon Filters are filtration specialists…we distribute all kinds of filtration equipment and manufacture back flushing filters, centrifugal separators, purge strainers, in line basket strainers and filterbag housings.