Johannesburg — SASOL, Statoil of Norway and US- based Chesapeake Energy have made a joint application for onshore petroleum exploration rights in SA.

Sasol said the application, made through wholly-owned upstream oil and gas subsidiary Sasol Petroleum International, was officially submitted to the Petroleum Agency SA (Pasa) yesterday and was expected to take about a year to process.

Pasa, a government agency, promotes and regulates exploration and development of oil and gas in SA. Statoil is Norway's biggest oil and gas producer and is listed on the New York and Oslo stock exchanges.

The exploration joint venture puts SA on the radar screens of explorers looking for alternative sources of oil and gas as North Sea production declines.

The proposed exploration would focus on finding potentially commercial recoverable shale gas resources in SA's Karoo basin.

If the exploration right application was successful, Sasol and Statoil would jointly commit to an exploration work programme, Sasol said.

Shale gas is natural gas produced from shale, a type of sedimentary rock formed from clay. Shale gas had become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the US over the past decade, and interest had spread to potential gas shales in Canada, Europe and SA, Sasol said.

The Karoo Basin has unproven shale gas potential and significant exploration efforts are required to assess it.

Sasol Petroleum International develops and manages Sasol's upstream interests in oil and gas exploration and production in a number of countries.

Statoil has operations in 40 countries, and builds on more than 35 years of experience. The New York-listed Chesapeake Energy is the world's most active driller of horizontal shale wells, and the second largest natural gas producer in the US.

Sasol and Statoil first mooted a partnership in 1997 when the two companies wanted to form an alliance to convert natural gas to synthetic fuels. At the time, the rationale behind the alliance was the complementary technology of the two companies.

Sasol and Gassnova , the Norwegian state-owned enterprise responsible for managing governmental interests related to carbon capture and storage, on Tuesday signed an agreement that would enable Sasol to explore becoming a participant in the European COÂ' Technology Centre Mongstad which is under construction in Norway.