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Speaker 1: Nobody knows what is going to happen with Iran and

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Speaker 1: the Straits of Warmus and oil producing countries in the Gulf,

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Speaker 1: and the transport of the oil that they are no

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Speaker 1: longer able to produce in any significant numbers. Because the

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Speaker 1: man at the center of at all, well, they're two

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Speaker 1: men at the center of all. Well, there are more

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Speaker 1: than two men at the center of at all. There

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Speaker 1: is Donald Trump, who is completely and utterly unpredictable and

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Speaker 1: almost always contradicting himself every five minutes of every day.

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Speaker 1: And then there is Benyminnetta, and Yahoo is on a

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Speaker 1: messianic mission, and I'm not sure that he will join

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Speaker 1: in with any pullbacks that Donald Trump would like to make.

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Speaker 1: And then there are the men. However, men, however, many

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Speaker 1: men are in charge of decision making in Iran at

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Speaker 1: the moment. But Donald Trump says, I give you forty

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Speaker 1: eight hours to fully open the straits of Ormus or

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Speaker 1: I oliterate energy infrastructs, and markets crash and currencies shift

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Speaker 1: and oil price goes up. And then he says, I'll

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Speaker 1: give you five more days because some really really big

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Speaker 1: and good talks with whom one of their people, which person.

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Speaker 1: I don't know one of their people. I can't tell

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Speaker 1: you because they're all dead. And I'll give you five days.

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Speaker 1: And the oil price drops by more than ten dollars

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Speaker 1: and stock markets go up, and then people start to

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Speaker 1: scratch their heads and say and un actually believe this,

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Speaker 1: and the oil price goes up. Are one hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: a barrel again? And one of the questions that I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of countries are asking themselves, how do

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Speaker 1: they make themselves more energy secure. I was looking at

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Speaker 1: a news conference earlier today being given by the British

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Speaker 1: Energy Secretary who said, we're going to step up our

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Speaker 1: nuclear program. We do not want to be dependent on

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Speaker 1: crude oil to the extent that we are at the moment.

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Speaker 1: So they've just passed the regulation that any new development

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Speaker 1: has to have solar geezer or a heat pump, and

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Speaker 1: they talked about nuclear, so not north sea oil and gas,

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Speaker 1: but nuclear. I know the people within South Africa who

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Speaker 1: would love us to go to nuclear, but there are

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Speaker 1: also a lot of people in South Africa me concerned,

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Speaker 1: me amongst them, who are very concerned that that would

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Speaker 1: completely banktrup Us. Lindsay Skitter's business writer at Daily. Maverick

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Speaker 1: has been researching this and writing about it. Lindsay, Hello, Hello,

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Speaker 1: how are you? Yeah, I'm well.

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Speaker 2: Confused existential dread?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what are you laughing at? There's nothing to laugh about.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing funny.

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Speaker 2: I thought the jokes. These are unprecedented times and they

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Speaker 2: are changing by the hour.

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Speaker 1: How much known unknowns do we have when it comes

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Speaker 1: to potential oil, exploitable oil and gas in the seas

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Speaker 1: off our coastline, all seas to which we might be

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Speaker 1: granted access? Well, is that known?

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Speaker 2: We had a lot of knowns total energies before they

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Speaker 2: exited in July twenty twenty four in the Nicua Basin,

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Speaker 2: just kind of like off Muscle Bay. On that side,

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Speaker 2: they proved one billion barrels of oil equivalent. But then

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Speaker 2: they exited because developing the deep water infrastructure to pipe

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Speaker 2: the gas to the now shuttered Muscle Bay refinery was

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Speaker 2: assessed as unviable without sovereign pricing guarantees, so the government

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Speaker 2: wasn't willing to step in with their own money. And

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Speaker 2: then total was like cool. But then they putted to

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Speaker 2: the west coast to the Orange Basin that we share

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Speaker 2: with Namibia. But as the case is going forth now

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Speaker 2: in the High Court. Both sides are being heard yesterday

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Speaker 2: and today. We will see what happens there. But in

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Speaker 2: the time since twenty twenty two where the first no

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Speaker 2: zero exploration wealth has been rolled on our side, but

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Speaker 2: Namibia has drolled like twenty already. So they surging ahead

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Speaker 2: and we are lagging behind. But our environmental regulations are.

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Speaker 1: A little bit more strict because I don't think there's

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Speaker 1: any doubt that Guery Mantache wants us to go full

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Speaker 1: on gung ho with both the stuff off Mussel Bay,

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Speaker 1: the potential yield there and off our west coast. And

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Speaker 1: I don't know how much support he has in cabinet

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Speaker 1: path she's getting more now that we are looking at

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Speaker 1: the fuel price increases we're looking at as of the

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Speaker 1: first of March. What's your sense?

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Speaker 2: So firstly, like the developing our own resources, even if

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Speaker 2: you like go gung ho, we frack the CAREU, we

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Speaker 2: do all those things, it's not going to change the

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Speaker 2: pricing because the pricing is still priced in dollars, and

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Speaker 2: as you can see from the current markets, the dollar

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Speaker 2: is surging because everyone needs more dollars to buy the

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Speaker 2: energy that is in short supply. So he I framed

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Speaker 2: it as he's been partially vindicated for like trying to

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Speaker 2: push through these measures for the longest time, and he's

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Speaker 2: been ready choled about it, but he saw the writing

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Speaker 2: on the wall. We are too exposed to the outside

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Speaker 2: market and developing our own resources will help us just

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Speaker 2: have independent access to oil. We'll still be paying through

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Speaker 2: our necks for it, but we at least will have

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Speaker 2: a steady supply and we don't have to now pervot to.

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Speaker 2: I think we're getting finished product from India now because

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Speaker 2: like seventy percent of our fuel is imported as finished

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Speaker 2: product in this country, because our refining capacity is a

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Speaker 2: third of what we started. The democratic project was because

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Speaker 2: of a litany of things. Well, yeah, he's been partially

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Speaker 2: vindicated and he is getting a lot more urgency in

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Speaker 2: his corner.

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Speaker 1: And do you think that he might use this opportunity

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Speaker 1: to because I mean it's part of the IRP, the

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Speaker 1: latest iteration of the IRP new nuclear and I wonder

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Speaker 1: if opposition to that will drop. I doubt it. I

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Speaker 1: think those are people who opposed to it a on

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Speaker 1: environmental grounds and b on their conviction that South Africa

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Speaker 1: is unable to manage the costing and the honest costing

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Speaker 1: of a nuclear build. But do you think that's going

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Speaker 1: to be four fronted more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the nuclear ball stuff, that's all kind of

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Speaker 2: shifted over to Ramajopa's purview as Minister of Electricity and Energy.

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Speaker 2: It gets really weird because Guida is now just mineral

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Speaker 2: and petroleum resources, but he does the guesting, which is

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Speaker 2: also energy. It's weird, but yes, Ramahopa is pushing forward

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Speaker 2: on nuclear. There is a lot of development going there.

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Speaker 2: Pebble bed is back on the table. It's been moved

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Speaker 2: back to Nexer so that they can start developing kind

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Speaker 2: of the IP, trying to get some of our engineers

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Speaker 2: back developed the safety regulations around that, because that's actually

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Speaker 2: the big problem is that because Kuburg is a pressurized

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Speaker 2: water reactor, we have all of the security clearances with

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Speaker 2: the International Nuclear Agency for that type of reactor, So

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Speaker 2: bolding anything else is going to be like seven to

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Speaker 2: twelve years worth of just prototyping and all of those things.

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Speaker 2: But we are expanding the Kuburg site and then we're

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Speaker 2: setting up another site on the East coast, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: that should all start to be actioned from next year.

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Speaker 1: Basicly, all of this is so long term, and who

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Speaker 1: knows what AI will come up with a new energies

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Speaker 1: because by the time that either mussel Bay or the

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Speaker 1: West Coast Basin before that, before the pipelines are built

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Speaker 1: and it's delivering gas or crude oil or whatever is found,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's twenty twenty five thirty years down the

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Speaker 1: line and the world has changed completely and oil is

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Speaker 1: run out in the Gulf and there's a new kid

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Speaker 1: on the block. So it's a really difficult policy space

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Speaker 1: to be in, which perhaps has a very precise and

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Speaker 1: important focus on it now as a result of the

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Speaker 1: bombing of Iran and subsequent events.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like South Africa is kindly paying the price for

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Speaker 2: effectively fety years of decisions that made perfect sense at

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Speaker 2: the time, but when taken together and looked at what

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Speaker 2: the value of the current hindsight, it was just a

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Speaker 2: catastrophic myss. Like we should have had the nuclear power

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Speaker 2: station in g Nuby. Maybe we should have been and

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Speaker 2: let Jacob Zuma funnel all over money to Russia and

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Speaker 2: both that done that. But I mean, these are all

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Speaker 2: steps in the past to where we are right now.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, The pass forward is long and hard, but

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Speaker 2: at least there is like the vision of a past

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Speaker 2: which is always positive. I like to always like have

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Speaker 2: the positive side.

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Speaker 1: Then she's good us thank you very much indeed. Business

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Speaker 1: writer with Daily Maverick