Sasol moves towards independence with 2012 sufficiency goals

15 September 2009

Sasol Synfuels has said it is suffering from rising prices due to Eskom's expansion projects and has announced plans to move towards independence using natural gas from Mozambique.

Chief executive officer Pat Davies declared that South Africa's largest industrial company was planning on generating at least half of its own electricity by 2012.

Business Day quoted him as saying: "This is a sensible thing to do, given the electricity price increases," he said.

Elemental to realising this objective is Project Mafutha, a greenfield coal-to-liquid facility which was said to have been in the pipeline even before Eskom's prices became prohibitive, the news source relayed.

Mr Davies suggested that it hoped to secure the help of the government for the 80,000 barrel-a-day endeavour, which is currently at a prefeasibility stage.

Equity analyst and portfolio manager at Sanlam Investment Management Shoaib Vayej told the paper Sasol had the balance sheet for the project and reported the Industrial Development Corporation would help with funding.

The energy and chemicals group recently reported a 39 per cent drop in full-year earnings for the year ending June 2008.

Category: Energy