Oil & Gas
KwaZulu-Natal has strategically important energy assets.
The biggest item on Transnet’s impressive list of capital investment projects a new multi-product pipeline currently being built between Durban and the Highveld. The estimated cost of the project, which is designed to ensure that petroleum products get delivered to South Africa’s industrial heartland for at least two decades, is R12 billion. The parastatal’s overall capital expenditure (capex) programme is R93.4-billion.
The liquid fuels and gas networks of parastatal Transnet Pipelines traverse KwaZulu-Natal from west to east and north to south. The petroleum network has intake stations at both Durban refineries, while the gas pipeline runs from Secunda in Mpumalanga to Durban, with diversions to the manufacturing hubs of Newcastle and Richards Bay, and along the coast between Durban and Empangeni. The new pipeline will have four pump stations and terminals at inland and coastal locations.
KwaZulu-Natal’s two oil refineries produce large volumes of a wide range of products. They are important regional and national assets as their joint production accounts for more than 300 000 of the 700 000 barrels of refined crude oil that South Africa produces.
South Africa’s biggest refinery is Sapref. Owned jointly by Shell SA Energy and BP Southern Africa, and situated south of Durban at Prospecton, it has a capacity to produce 180 000 barrels per day. The refinery also makes propylene feedstock, solvents, sulphur, asphalt and industrial-processing oils. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is another product made at Sapref.
Other plants in Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Richards Bay produce a variety of industrial, household and medical gases. End products include acetylene welding products and compressed oxygen cylinders.
The Engen refinery south of Durban has been upgraded in recent years. These changes have resulted in sulphur dioxide emissions being reduced and capacity boosted to 135 000 barrels per day. Safor is a base-oil production facility (jointly owned by Engen, Caltex and Total but operated by Engen) that produces 45% of Southern Africa’s base oils. Engen also owns the adjoining Lube Oil Blend Plant, which produces finished lubricants.
Singapore company Silver Wave Energy is set to conduct a seismic survey off the coast of the province between Durban and Richards Bay. Granted exploration rights in 2009, the company will look for oil and gas in a 5 000 square kilometre area.
