Frans Cronje and Gabriel Makin discuss what South Africa's oil reserves could do for the economy.
6 minSouth Africa is sitting on around 30 billion barrels of oil equivalent, mostly under the seabed. Frans Cronje walks Gabriel Makin through The Common Sense's three scenarios: leave it in the ground (growth stuck at 1%, unemployment over 30%), pump it out and export it (growth doubles to 2%), or use it as a catalyst for industry (growth of around 4%, settling above 3%, and unemployment down from 33% to about 20% over 20 years). They then discuss the Constitutional Court's Shell judgment, and Frans explains why it is a tragedy.

THE COMMON SENSE
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20.8.2026
Frans Cronje
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6 min

THE COMMON SENSE
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