In August 2025, a South African court canceled an environmental authorization granted to French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies and its joint venture partner Shell to drill offshore exploration wells. Now TotalEnergies is facing fresh legal challenges in South Africa for another proposed project.
March 23 and 24, the Western Cape High Court is hearing an appeal application filed by a small-scale fishing cooperative and two environmental justice organizations. They are questioning the legality of an environmental authorization (EA) granted to TotalEnergies in South Africa’s deep-water Orange Basin Block.
The block is located off the west coast of South Africa, between Port Nolloth and Hondeklip Bay, running between 188 and 340 kilometers (117 and and 213 miles) off South Africa’s western coastline.
“TotalEnergies needs to go back to the drawing board and do the process again in the right way,” Walter Steenkamp, chairperson of the Aukotowa Fisheries Cooperative, one of the appeal applicants, told Mongabay over the phone. Steenkamp added that, apart from the long-term negative impacts of fossil fuel extraction to the marine environment and climate change, the company failed to consult with small-scale fishers on how the operations would affect them.
In October 2024 the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) gave TotalEnergies the environmental go-ahead for the deep-water Orange Basin project.
This environmental authorization was challenged by three South African-based NGOs: Aukotowa Fishing Cooperative, the Green Connection and Natural Justice. They argue that the decisions taken by the South African government are likely to cause significant harm to the environment, didn’t take into account any potential damage post-exploration phase and failed to consider impacts on communities, including the fishers in nearby Port Nolloth.
The claimants also argued that oil and gas operations are in contradiction to the government’s low-emission development strategy, which ensures the country complies with its obligations under the Paris Agreement.
“The core of the case concerns the decision-makers’ failure to take relevant considerations into account, particularly the effect of the decisions on climate change,” the heads of argument read.
In August 2025, the Western Cape High Court set aside a previous decision by the South African government to issue an EA for the offshore concession block 5/6/7. That decision was based on irregularities in the environmental impact assessment, failure to account for the climate change impacts and lack of proper public participation.
“Some of the issues we raise in almost every EIA for offshore projects, but the consultants have declined to amend their assessments. The result is that in our view, almost all of the decisions are reviewable on these similar grounds, and we have to go to court to challenge the decisions,” Melissa Groenink-Groves, program manager at Natural Justice, told Mongabay.
The DMPR and TotalEnergies didn’t respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment by the time of publication.
Banner image: Fishing boats in harbor at Port Nolloth, South Africa. Image by South African Tourism via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY 2.0).
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