Sasol not interested in investing in renewable energy

CHEMICALS and fuel giant Sasol will dispose of its Montney shale gas asset in Canada, joint-chief executive Bongani Nqwababa has said.

Addressing investors on Sasol’s new strategy yesterday, Nqwababa said the decision to dispose of the asset followed a review of the company’s global assets.

To date, he said, the company has completed reviews on more than half of its assets. “This is underpinned by our drive to improve asset performance, not liquidity requirements,” he said.

Most of the reviews had confirmed that the majority of Sasol’s assets would be retained, he said.

Nqwababa said Sasol, together with its partner in the Canadian project, Process Energy, would start “a structured divestment process”.

Sasol joint-chief executive Stephen Cornell said that in the development of the new strategy, Sasol had had to make “hard choices”. These included a decision not to make further investments in new crude refining capacity.

He said the company had decided not to invest in renewable energy, saying renewables offered no clear growth value for Sasol. Instead, Sasol would focus on growing speciality chemicals in select market segments, pursue growth in exploration and production, as well as growing its liquid fuels retail footprint in southern Africa.

Commenting on exploration opportunities in the rest of Africa, Nqwababa said: “To win on the African continent, we will leverage our current upstream expertise, while continuing to strengthen our (exploration and production) capabilities given the larger role we envisage for Sasol Exploration and Production International going forward.” – Siseko Njobeni