Sasol outage indicates all South African oil refineries are now shut

Sasol, South Africa’s greatest fuel producer, declared force majeure on the source of petroleum solutions because of to delays in deliveries of crude to the Natref refinery it owns with TotalEnergies, leaving just a fraction of the country’s fuel-creation capability even now operational.

Natref, a 108 000 barrel-a-working day plant, was compelled to shut right after the late oil shipments, the firm reported in a assertion. “Sasol Oil will not be in a posture to absolutely satisfy its commitments on the source of all petroleum products from July 2022,” the business reported.

The shutdown indicates the whole of South Africa’s oil-refinery fleet is out of action following a string of other facilities suspended manufacturing over the past two yrs. As a consequence, the country’s regular petroleum product or service imports are established to as significantly as triple by future calendar year from pre-pandemic ranges, vitality consultant Citac reported in a May report.

Only Sasol’s synthetic gas functions, which use coal as a feedstock, continue to be completely operational, generating up about a fifth of nationwide capability.

A hearth at the Engen oil refinery, which will be transformed into a terminal, and an explosion at Glencore’s Cape City refinery, have speedily curbed capacity. 

Sapref, the country’s greatest plant, which is owned by Shell Plc and BP Plc, stopped functions forward of a sale and was subsequently broken by floods. Condition-owned PetroSA’s gasoline-to-liquids plant, a different artificial operation, has run out of feedstock.

Meanwhile, a thoroughly clean-fuels plan that’s set to acquire result subsequent calendar year raises the probability that refineries unable to fulfill the new specifications will have to shut permanently.

For now, the outage at Natref is momentary. Crude oil shipments are expected to start off arriving shortly, with the plant expected to ramp up to highest manufacturing by the conclude of July, Sasol stated. The partners have nevertheless to conclude alternatives on the long term of the plant, Sasol Chief Govt Officer Fleetwood Grobler mentioned previously this 12 months.

The Cape City refinery is also anticipated to restart in the next half of 2022.  

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