By John Donovan
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has blocked Shell-led offshore exploration on the Wild Coast, overturning a 2024 appeal ruling that had offered the company and its partner, Impact Africa, a route to renew their disputed exploration right.
Final Court Ruling Ends the Renewal Route
Reuters reported on 14 August 2026 that the Constitutional Court, South Africa’s highest court, ruled that Shell-led exploration off the country’s Indian Ocean Wild Coast cannot proceed. Justice Jody Kollapen, delivering the majority decision, said the order of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) was set aside.
The immediate effect is to remove the lifeline afforded by the SCA in 2024. That court had dismissed Shell’s appeal against a finding that the exploration right and its renewals were unlawful, but directed that defects in public participation could be cured through a further renewal application. The Constitutional Court has now overturned that remedial part of the decision.
The case concerns an exploration right granted in 2014 to Impact Africa, to be exercised by Shell Exploration and Production South Africa and BG International. Shell and Impact had sought to conduct a seismic survey in waters off the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast as part of the search for oil and gas.
Five Years of Litigation
The dispute became a national issue in late 2021, when coastal communities, fishers and environmental organisations went to court to stop a planned seismic survey. On 28 December 2021, the Makhanda High Court interdicted Shell and Impact from carrying out the survey pending the substantive review.
In September 2022, the High Court set aside the 2014 exploration right and its later renewals. It found the consultation process deficient, including in relation to affected communities and the potential impact on spiritual and cultural practices connected with the sea.
The SCA’s June 2024 judgment agreed that the consultation had been inadequate and that the right and renewals had been unlawfully granted. However, it held that the High Court had not properly considered a just and equitable remedy. It allowed the companies, as part of a third renewal application, to undertake a further public-participation process intended to cure the flaws.
Wild Coast communities and environmental organisations challenged that remedy in the Constitutional Court. Reuters reports that the majority has now set the SCA order aside, preventing the renewal-based path that Shell and Impact had been given.
Consultation Was Central to the Case
The litigation was never solely a dispute about seismic-survey technology. It raised the question of whether people whose livelihoods, fishing grounds and cultural relationship with the ocean could be affected had been meaningfully involved before the state granted an exploration right.
Reuters quoted Delme Cupido, director of Natural Justice, one of the applicants, as saying the judgment affirmed that public participation is not merely a box-ticking procedure, but must place the dignity of affected people at the centre of development decisions. That position is consistent with the earlier court findings on the shortcomings of the consultation process.
The Wild Coast is also ecologically sensitive, with marine protected areas and waters used by whales, dolphins, fishers and tourism operators. Opponents had argued that the proposed seismic activity risked harming marine life and that the state had failed to provide a lawful and adequately participatory approval process.
Shell’s Response and What the Decision Does—and Does Not—Decide
Shell told Reuters it had noted the judgment and remained committed to responsible offshore exploration, meaningful stakeholder engagement and environmental stewardship. The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The ruling is a decisive outcome for this particular exploration right and its attempted renewal. It does not, by itself, amount to a general prohibition on all offshore oil and gas exploration in South Africa. Shell has separate interests elsewhere, including planned exploration activity in the Orange Basin off the west coast, which is subject to its own approvals and challenges.
But the judgment is a substantial setback for Shell and Impact Africa. It closes a five-year legal fight over the Wild Coast project and reinforces the importance of meaningful consultation where extractive projects may affect coastal communities and the marine environment.
Sources
- Reuters: South Africa’s top court rules Shell exploration off Wild Coast cannot proceed, 14 August 2026.
- Supreme Court of Appeal: Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy and Others v Sustaining the Wild Coast NPC and Others, 3 June 2024.
- Constitutional Court case record: Sustaining the Wild Coast NPC and Others v Minister of Mineral Resources and Others.
- Legal Resources Centre: SCA dismisses Shell’s appeal but extends Shell a lifeline, 3 June 2024.
