South Africa appeals to Saudi Arabia
To help fix refinery crisis
Only three of South Africa's six refineries are currently operational, with 35% of South Africa's refinery design capacity available.
The CEO of government's Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), Godfrey Moagi, has appealed to Saudi Arabia to fix South Africa's refinery shortage. Moagi spoke at the Saudi-Africa Energy Investment Forum panel at African Energy Week on Wednesday. Just three of the country's six refineries are operational.
Only three of South Africa's six refineries are currently operational, with 35% of South Africa's refinery design capacity available.
The three operational refineries include the Natref, operated by Sasol and Total Energies; the Sasol Secunda refinery; and the Astron Energy refinery. The Astron refinery – formerly known as Calref, and which Glencore acquired with all Chevron's SA assets in 2019 – resumed production this year after a deadly fire led to an 18-month closure.
The Sapref, Enref, and PetroSA refineries have remained closed.
Enref was closed by Engen in 2021 following an explosion at the facility, while operations were halted at Sapref in early 2022 and subsequent damage to the plant caused by the KwaZulu-Natal floods scuppered plans to sell the facility to the state.
Meanwhile, the PetroSA gas-to-liquid refinery in Mossel Bay, the only state-owned refinery, has been offline since late 2021 after it ran out of offshore gas feedstock.
"We talked about refineries in South Africa before the pandemic, but plans did not materialise. No one believed us when we said that refineries would close, and since then, three have closed down," Moagi said.
Crude
Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top crude oil producers, producing 10.4 million barrels per day last year. It is also one of the top natural gas producers.
Moagi argued that Saudi Arabia could become a key partner in providing liquid petroleum gas (LPG) to South Africa for energy security, saying:
South Africa is challenged with load shedding, and we don't have enough power. Saudi Arabia has too much energy.
General manager of International Business at PetroSA, Mntu Duvane, said a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia has "untapped potential for economic trade", particularly in the oil exploration and production of fuel.
According to PetroSA, South Africa has a potential of 27 million barrels of oil, 60 tcf of offshore gas, and 200 tcf of shale gas.
Earlier this month, Central Energy Fund (CEF) group chairperson Ayanda Noah said South Africa could face "a looming fuel crisis" due to its severely constrained refining capacity.
Noah said increased investment in upstream exploration and additional exploration could help revive refineries.-Fin24