South Africa’s upstream oil and gas sector rarely intersects with its foreign policy. That changed this month, when environmental justice organisation The Green Connection wrote an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa questioning the optics of an Israeli firm becoming operator of a major offshore exploration block, precisely as Pretoria continues to press its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The episode exposes a tension that South African policymakers have largely managed to avoid until now: what happens when commercial energy decisions collide with declared geopolitical principle.
The transaction at the centre of the dispute
The deal itself is unremarkable by industry standards. Israeli-headquartered Navitas Petroleum has exercised an option to farm into Block 1 CBK in the Orange Basin, acquiring a 37.5% working interest and operatorship, with the stake potentially rising to 47.5% depending on a related option involving local partner OrangeBasin Energies. The framework agreement, structured through Toronto- and AIM-listed Eco Atlantic, also extends to Guyana’s Orinduik block, positioning Navitas as a cross-portfolio partner rather than a single-asset investor. The agreement still requires approval from the Petroleum Agency of South Africa and a US$4 million payment to Eco before Navitas assumes operatorship.
Block 1 CBK sits in a basin that has become the most closely watched exploration frontier on the African Atlantic margin. Following major discoveries offshore Namibia, investor appetite in the South African side of the Orange Basin has surged, with industry figures describing the region as one of the most sought-after petroleum frontiers globally. For a capital-constrained explorer like Eco Atlantic, bringing in an operator with production experience in the U.S. Gulf and an active development in the Falklands’ Sea Lion field is, on paper, exactly the kind of technical and financial de-risking the basin needs to move from seismic data to drill bits.
Where commerce meets constitutional values
The Green Connection’s intervention is not, notably, a call to block the transaction. The organisation is not calling for automatic rejection but is urging the government to provide clear political and policy leadership on commercial engagement involving Israeli-owned companies while South Africa’s ICJ case proceeds. Its letter followed reports that Navitas could acquire the 37.5% interest, and by its own account has yet to receive a response from the Presidency.
This is a governance argument as much as a moral one. The letter specifically invokes section 11 of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, asking that any ministerial decision on the transfer be made lawfully, transparently and with proper regard for South Africa’s constitutional values and international obligations. That framing matters: MPRDA section 11 consent is precisely the regulatory chokepoint through which the state could, in principle, weigh non-technical considerations, though historically it has been applied narrowly to questions of technical and financial capacity rather than geopolitics.
The comparison the letter implicitly draws is to coal. South Africa has already faced pressure over coal exports to Israel, with the Minister of Trade and Industry confirming that the country exported 1.8 million tonnes of coal to Israel in 2025, about 2.6% of South Africa’s 71.5 million tonnes in global coal exports and indicating no plans to review that trade. If Pretoria was prepared to maintain a coal relationship with Israel on straightforward commercial grounds, the argument for treating an offshore exploration license differently requires more than moral discomfort; it requires an articulated policy distinction the government has not yet offered.
A sector already under judicial pressure
The Navitas question lands in a regulatory environment already strained by litigation. The Green Connection and allied groups have spent the past year systematically challenging offshore approvals on procedural rather than geopolitical grounds. In August 2025, the Western Cape High Court set aside environmental authorisation granted to TotalEnergies for drilling in Block 5/6/7, finding the environmental impact assessment had failed to adequately examine risks to coastal communities. By March 2026, the same court had reserved judgment in a separate challenge concerning ultra-deepwater exploration in the Deep Western Orange Basin, again brought by The Green Connection alongside Natural Justice and a local fishing cooperative.
That track record gives the Navitas letter added weight — this is not a group new to the sector, but one with a demonstrated ability to delay major projects through the courts. Its legal strategy has also been bolstered by the ICJ’s July 2025 advisory opinion confirming that states have a duty to prevent activities within their jurisdiction from causing significant climate harm, a precedent now being cited in appeals against Shell’s exploration authorisations.
The policy vacuum ahead
For investors, the practical risk is less about this specific transaction being blocked than about the accumulating pattern of regulatory and reputational uncertainty around Orange Basin acreage, procedural litigation on one front, geopolitical scrutiny on another. Namibia’s neighbouring discoveries have shown what capital-intensive success in this basin looks like; South Africa’s version of that story is increasingly one where technical promise is matched by governance ambiguity. Until the Presidency articulates a coherent position, on coal, on oil, and on what "commercial engagement" means during an active ICJ case, every subsequent farm-in involving an Israeli-linked entity will likely trigger the same unresolved questions Navitas now faces.
Written by:
*Sesona Mdlokovana
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Africa Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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