Director’s Cut: Jaco Human – Can GasHub save SA from the looming gas cliff?

As Sasol gas dries up by 2028, GasHub CEO Jaco Human explains how private industry is racing to secure new supply, develop pipelines, and unlock West Coast gas to keep South Africa powered before the lights go out again..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.By BizNews reporter.South Africa is heading towards a hard energy deadline. By mid-2028, Sasol’s Mozambican natural gas supply will end. The so-called “gas cliff” means thousands of industrial users could suddenly lose their primary energy source, putting manufacturing jobs and economic stability at risk. That looming crisis has pushed the private sector into action with the formal launch of GasHub, a new industry-led vehicle designed to aggregate gas demand, unlock infrastructure projects, and secure South Africa’s future gas supply.Speaking to BizNews, GasHub CEO Jaco Human explains that the problem is not demand. It is scale and infrastructure.“Our industrial gas market is highly fragmented,” he says. “South Africa is meaningful in Africa terms, but globally it is still small. No single company can underwrite the massive investments needed for pipelines, terminals, and supply contracts on its own.”GasHub pools buying power across major industrial users including food manufacturers, steel producers, glass makers, breweries, mining operations and chemical firms. Combined, these sectors consume around 65 petajoules of gas per year, roughly the energy equivalent of 65 million industrial gas cylinders.By aggregating this demand, GasHub offers suppliers one large, bankable buyer rather than dozens of small contracts. That, Human says, is what enables infrastructure projects to move from drawings into construction.But the project has attracted early scepticism. Any time companies pool buying power, cartel accusations quickly follow. Human says GasHub was built specifically to avoid that outcome.“We start with the Competition Commission,” he explains. “Because of the energy crisis, exemptions were granted that allow buyers and sellers to cooperate to build alternative supply solutions. This platform is open access, transparent, and not designed to make profits.”GasHub operates on a cost pass-through basis. Participants are shareholders proportional to their gas use. They buy and sell to themselves through the platform at cost, covering operating expenses but not generating margins. Full contract transparency ensures pricing discipline.In effect, GasHub functions more like a cooperative than a trading desk.Where the model faces its greatest obstacle is infrastructure funding. Building LNG regasification terminals, storage facilities and long pipeline networks requires guarantees stretching 10 to 15 years and costing billions of rands. Private industry is currently being asked to shoulder almost all of that risk. Human believes that is unrealistic.“This is typically the kind of network infrastructure that states develop,” he says. “But in South Africa, that is not happening. So the private sector is stepping in just to keep the economy running.”The recent Public Investment Corporation’s announcement that it is willing to fund strategic gas projects could be a breakthrough. Human says the PIC’s involvement may provide the risk cushioning private investors need.“Our ask is not free money,” he explains. “It is support structures similar to toll-road concessions or the Gautrain model, where the state provides first-loss or revenue guarantees so projects can reach financial close.”The direction PIC chooses will matter. It could invest on the demand side in gas-to-power stations such as Richards Bay or Eskom’s peaking plants currently running on diesel. Alternatively, it could fund midstream infrastructure like pipelines and terminals, or even upstream exploration.All three are vital if gas is to become a cornerstone of South Africa’s energy mix.While the short-term solution to the gas cliff may be imported LNG, Human is clear that it is expensive and unsustainable.“LNG is globally abundant, but it remains costly. Depending on it long term would be an industrial slow puncture.”South Africa’s medium-term hope lies on the West Coast and offshore basins shared with Namibia. Across the border, large discoveries have already moved to advanced development, with first gas expected around 2033. Namibia’s regulatory regime, community consultations, and investor certainty have allowed rapid progress.South Africa, by contrast, has stalled.“Our regulatory environment means major projects can be stopped for years on technical process issues alone,” says Human. “There is no specialist tribunal to balance environmental, economic and social imperatives. Everything goes through lengthy court processes that frequently derail developments.”He points out that Namibia undertook nationwide consultations and found not one community opposed to development. Meanwhile, similar projects on the South African side face fierce resistance and court delays. The result, he says, is economic self-sabotage.“Economies are built on energy. Just as coal underpinned our industrial rise, gas could power our next manufacturing revival. But without regulatory reform, we will never unlock it.”Human estimates that even with supportive policies today, it would still take at least 10 years before internationally competitive gas production flows from South African waters.Until then, bridging solutions must keep industry alive.Significant potential also exists in the Southern Cape fields near Mossel Bay, where infrastructure from PetroSA’s refinery already exists. Commercial stalemates over pricing have delayed development. Human believes gas-to-power projects in the region could revive these assets if government and developers finally reach agreement.The well-publicised shale gas prospects of the Karoo, he says, remain decades away. The reserves require proof, but more importantly, would demand enormous infrastructure investment in quasi-desert regions lacking roads, water supply, electricity networks and pipelines. He sees far greater near-term value along the coast than inland.GasHub’s founding members represent every major gas-using industry in the country, from food production and packaging to heavy metals and chemicals. Many cannot survive a sudden shift to LNG pricing, which could double their energy costs overnight.“For some sectors, this is existential,” Human says. “Gas is not a luxury. Bread is baked on gas. Glass is melted with gas. Steel production depends on it.”Through collective purchasing and cooperative risk-sharing, GasHub is trying to protect both industrial output and jobs, while creating the foundation for a domestic gas renaissance.Human warns that time is short.“We have four and a half years before the Sasol supply ends. LNG can bridge part of the gap, but affordable local gas is the real solution. If South Africa chooses action now, we can reindustrialise. If we delay, we may simply deindustrialise.”For the first time in decades, momentum appears to be building. Whether politics and policy will catch up to business urgency remains the unanswered question.

Director’s Cut: Jaco Human – Can GasHub save SA from the looming gas cliff?

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