The oil import bill could have been R76bn lower in 2021–2024 if refined-product imports had stayed at 25%. 5,400 jobs displaced. CEF bought Sapref for R1; the three-phase revival still has no funding model.
Between 2021 and 2024 the oil import bill could have been R76 billion lower if refined-product imports had stayed at a 25% cap — an average 6.1% reduction — with 5,400 direct and indirect jobs displaced. Kabelo Khumalo in Business Day (14 September) is reporting the SARB occasional note Running on empty?: operational capacity is now about 250,000 b/d, imports cover more than half of demand, and petroleum-related manufacturing output is down roughly 20% since 2019. The same shift is the 61% finished-product share Bloomberg put against 22% in 2019.
CEF bought the flood-damaged Durban plant from BP and Shell for R1 in 2024; it has sat idle since the 2022 KZN floods. Last week’s three-phase revival for mothballed Sapref, now SANPC — Engineering News on the 9th, EWN on the 11th, still in Monday’s Business Day — targets about 400,000 barrels a day. Phase 1 would turn the existing tanks into an import terminal — more importing, not less. Phase 2 is the rebuild; Phase 3 talks 400–650k bbl/d against a nameplate of roughly 180,000. There is still no funding model and no timeline.
That is the live debate under Integrated Energy Plan Update — Gas and Energy Diversification: liquid fuels and petroleum transformation. The adjacent fight on Fuel Price Regulation Reform — Partial Deregulation is the same import pad, priced through the regulated margin. The failure is specific. Refining capacity collapsed into import dependence; revival is being run through CEF/SANPC without saying who pays for a rebuild several times Sapref’s size; and Phase 1 still imports. For the industrial-policy and energy-infrastructure frame, see the textbook’s Chapter 3 and Chapter 5.