00206BF55FFC220803103048

This document is an appeal decision by the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment of South Africa regarding the refusal of an Environmental Authorisation (EA) for Karpowership SA (Pty) Ltd's proposed Gas-to-Power via Powership Project at the Port of Saldanha Bay. The Minister dismissed eight grounds of appeal raised by Karpowership and nine other appellants, upholding the finding that the application was deficient due to material gaps in environmental impact data—specifically regarding underwater noise—and procedural failures in public participation. However, rather than confirming the final refusal, the Minister remitted the matter to the Competent Authority for reconsideration, provided the identified gaps and procedural defects are addressed.

• The proposed project involves generating electricity from a floating mobile powership with a combined design capacity of 415MW, utilizing 21 gas reciprocating engines and 2 steam turbines, with a planned 20-year lifespan.
• The Competent Authority (CA) originally refused the Environmental Authorisation because the project's actual and potential impacts on the environment and socio-economic conditions, particularly for small-scale fisheries, could not be properly evaluated due to a lack of a proper underwater noise impact study.
• The Minister found that the project's status as a Strategic Integrated Project (SIP) and its role in alleviating South Africa's power crisis do not override the legal requirement to comply with environmental legislation and the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA).
• The project's Climate Change Impact Assessment (CCIA) was deemed inadequate because it focused primarily on greenhouse gas emissions and failed to assess the impacts of climate change on the project itself or how the project might aggravate local climate impacts.
• The Minister identified a failure in the public participation process (PPP), specifically a violation of regulation 23(1)(b) of the 2014 EIA Regulations, because significant new information and changes in the Final Environmental Impact Assessment Report (FEIAr) were not subjected to a further 30-day public comment period.
• The Socio-Economic Impact Assessment was found to be defective as it failed to analyze the actual risks to small-scale fishers, lacked data on the local fishing economy base, and contained contradictory recommendations regarding whether positive impacts outweighed negative ones.
• Specialist reports indicated that the discharge of heated cooling water (with temperature increases of up to 15°C) could cause thermal stress and chronic effects on resident biota, including fish larvae and mariculture farms, with no mitigation proposed for these impacts.
• The Minister concluded that the gaps in information and procedural defects in the public participation process were 'material and fatal' and could not be cured through the appeal process alone.

APA

Centre for Environmental Rights (n.d.). 00206BF55FFC220803103048. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/LSA-207023-Appeal-Decision.pdf?x21779

Chicago

Centre for Environmental Rights. 00206BF55FFC220803103048. n.d. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/LSA-207023-Appeal-Decision.pdf?x21779.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Centre for Environmental Rights |title=00206BF55FFC220803103048 |url=https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/LSA-207023-Appeal-Decision.pdf?x21779 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centreforenvironmentalrightsnd00206bf55ffc220803103048, author = {{Centre for Environmental Rights}}, title = {{00206BF55FFC220803103048}}, institution = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, url = {https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/LSA-207023-Appeal-Decision.pdf?x21779}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }