Sasol Integrated Report 2024 - Book - Page 62
INTRODUCTION
ABOUT SASOL
STRATEGIC OVERVIEW
BUSINESSES
ESG
REMUNERATION REPORT
DATA AND ASSURANCE / ADMINISTRATION
SASOL ENERGY BUSINESS continued
MINING, GAS, OPERATIONS AND FUELS
continued
SAFELY DELIVERING TODAY, SHAPING TOMORROW
IMPROVING MINING PRODUCTIVITY AND COAL QUALITY
ADVANCING GAS SUPPLY
Business of today
Production Sharing Agreement (PSA)
Initial gas facilities were completed and first PSA-gas flowed on 7 May 2024, with 2 bscf exported to South Africa by end-June 2024.
With the drilling of all required wells for the PSA phase-1 project, we are on track for the beneficial operation (BO) of the integrated oil,
gas and liquefied petroleum gas production facility in the last quarter of the calendar year 2024.
Exploration
Achieving our targeted coal quality and mining productivity
are among the key challenges in our South African integrated
value chain.
Our full potential programme at Mining aims for a sustainable
improvement across all collieries. In 2024, it supported some
productivity gains and focused on embedding and sustaining
safe production processes, and improving our capabilities
and basic mining process skills.
Our external coal purchasing programme supplemented our
own production, helping to meet Secunda Operations’
demand and quality requirements, as well as maintain the
coal stockpile at targeted levels.
In August 2023, the Bonito-1 discovery and appraisal plan was submitted and approved. Following that, on 1 January 2024, the PT5-C
licence entered the second exploration sub-period with a commitment to execute one exploration well.
Final preparations are underway to drill up to two exploration wells and a Bonito appraisal well in the first half of 2025 as part of the
ongoing Mozambique exploration, remediation and infill campaign drilling.
Petroleum Production Agreement (PPA)
In 2024 the PPA produced 174 bscf of gas, of which 145 bscf was exported to South Africa. The increased production was the result of
numerous interventions including a higher PPA well stock capacity and a successful upgrade of the high-pressure compressor turbine
at the Central Processing Facility (CPF). The CPF reached the milestone of five years without a lost workday case. To extend upstream
production and the availability of natural gas for longer, we are progressing work on three PPA project investments. All are at different
stages of development, with BO expected over the next two years.
Business of tomorrow
Mining’s performance and overall competitiveness remained
constrained by factors related to the availability of mineable
areas and the effectiveness of our enabling systems,
equipment and infrastructure.
We continue to optimise and mature projects under development
in southern Mozambique to extend gas supply to our customers
for as long as feasibly possible. By their very nature, natural gas
resources are finite. Notwithstanding the success we have had in
providing an ongoing supply of gas, future options are more
capital intensive.
A key way to create additional production capacity and
improve overall coal quality is to merge sections to create
‘walk-on walk-off’ production sections. We anticipate
that this will result in further increase in production in 2025.
By improving our overall cost efficiency, we can ensure
future cost competitiveness.
As part of our revised gas strategy, we are working on enabling
the future supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to South Africa.
LNG has a three-to-four-year lead time and a key factor for any
decision to supply LNG is to confirm demand so that an LNG
terminal and associated infrastructure can be established.
Coal destoning has the potential to enable a better
performance from our value chain by reducing ash and sinks*
content. In 2024, we made progress with the preferred
destoning solution, and plan to make a final investment
decision in this regard in the second half of calendar 2024.
We have started engaging with customers, suppliers and
infrastructure developers in co-developing South Africa’s gas
and broader energy landscape. This includes the development
of indigenous gas supplies. Because of the technical work
required to unlock South Africa’s own gas resources, these
are likely to follow only after LNG supply is secured.
* ‘Non-coal’ or inorganic rock within Run-of-Mine coal with a relative density
>1.95.
SASOL INTEGRATED REPORT 2024
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