Sasol, South Africa’s largest fuel producer, has restarted the Natref refinery it owns with TotalEnergies after delays in oil deliveries last month resulted in an outage.
The outage prompted Sasol to declare a force majeure on petroleum products, which remains in place. The 108,000 barrels per day capacity refinery is now “online and production ramp-up is underway”, the company said.
The Natref shutdown also meant that the entire fleet of oil refineries in South Africa ground to a halt, after a number of other facilities had suspended production over the past two years. Platforms have faced costly upgrades to meet pending regulations on cleaner fuels.
South Africa has delayed the implementation of those rules from next year to 2027, and Sasol welcomed the energy department’s extension of the deadline as the company continues to “assess options” for the Natref plant.
08/05/2022
