Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionTable 7: South African RefineriesRefinery Location Owned by Fuel source Capacitybarrels/dayChevron Cape Town ChevronTexaco (Caltex) Crude oil 100,000Engen Durban Petronas 80% & Worldwide AfricaInvestment Holdings 20%Crude oil 150,000Sapref Durban Shell 50% & BP 50% Crude oil 180,000Natref Sasolburg Sasol 64% & Total 36% Crude oil 108,000Secunda Secunda Sasol Coal 150,000Mossgas Mossel Bay PetroSA Gas 45,000Notes:Sasol and Mossgas synfuels are given in barrels of oil equivalent.Engen’s technical capacity is 150,000 but its official capacity is given at 125,000 barrels/day.Table 8 gives the figures reported by Sasol, Sapref and Engen for 2006. Sasol’s SustainableDevelopment Report [Sasol SDR 2006] 74 gives aggregate figures on worker safety andenvironmental wastes for its global operations but does not break the figures downeither for specific sites or for component businesses. The table therefore shows 2002figures for the Secunda synfuels plant and Sasol Chemical Industries and Natref inSasolburg. Since Sasol claims real reductions of some pollutants at some plants, it iscurious that it will not release site specific figures.The corporation does produce an annual Sasolburg Health, Safety and Environment(SH&E) brief [2006] which quantifies solid wastes produced by Sasol ChemicalIndustries and Natref. On air pollution, it gives ambient concentrations in Sasolburgbut does not detail its own emissions. Sasol does not produce a similar brief forSecunda although this plant produces by far the majority of its global wastes. It is thelargest single source emitter of carbon dioxide in the world and accounts for close to90% of Sasol’s own carbon emissions. From the figures that Sasol does give, it appearsthat Secunda accounts for something like 95% of Sasol’s stupendous hazardous andgeneral solid waste production. The most likely explanation for the different treatmentgiven to Sasolburg and Secunda is that the corporation has felt more pressure fromenvironmental justice activists in Sasolburg.74 Sasol’s 2007 SDR strips out wastes from its Olefins and Surfactants business which was to be sold. The saledid not go through and Sasol says it will reinsert O&S figures next year. We have therefore used the 2006 SDRfigures which do include O&S.- 104 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation