Sasol Limited

Who owns Sasol?
Sasol Limited is publicly traded on the JSE and NYSE. Its largest shareholders include the Government Employees Pension Fund and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, plus domestic and international institutions.

Is Sasol state-owned?
No. Founded as a state enterprise in 1950, it was privatized via its 1979 JSE listing. State-linked funds remain large shareholders but it operates as a normal public company.

What does Sasol make?
Liquid fuels from coal and gas via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, plus a broad chemicals portfolio including surfactants, alcohols, polymers, and waxes, and it retails fuel through Sasol service stations.

What was Sasol's 2025 revenue?
Turnover of R249.1 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, with adjusted EBITDA of R51.8 billion and earnings per share of R10.60.

Where is Sasol headquartered?
Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, with its flagship Secunda synthetic fuels complex in Mpumalanga province.

Is Sasol committed to net zero?
Yes, it targets net zero emissions by 2050 through renewables procurement, feedstock shifts toward gas, and efficiency, though environmental groups criticize the timeline given its status as one of the world's largest single-site emitters.

Sasol was a national insurance policy. Post-war South Africa had virtually no oil and worried about supply access, so in 1950 the government created the South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation under engineer Etienne Rousseau to adapt German Fischer-Tropsch coal liquefaction technology to local coal.

The Sasolburg plant produced its first synthetic fuel in 1955. For two decades the company remained a modest state venture, until the 1973 oil crisis and growing anti-apartheid sanctions transformed its strategic importance. The government ordered construction of Secunda in the late 1970s: a vast complex of coal mines, gasifiers, and synthesis units designed to secure the country's fuel supply against boycott.

Sasol listed on the JSE in 1979, beginning its privatization, and the state gradually sold its direct stake. Expansion continued through the 1980s and 1990s: Secunda's second phase, the Mossel Bay gas-to-liquids refinery in 1992, chemicals diversification, and international ventures including the Oryx GTL plant in Qatar.

The 2000s and 2010s brought global ambition and its cost. The Lake Charles Chemicals Project in Louisiana, a roughly $13 billion ethane cracker complex, ran years late and billions over budget, completed around 2022 and immediately impaired. Combined with collapsing oil prices and COVID, it triggered writedowns and strategic retreat: asset sales, dividend suspension, and a pivot back to core strengths.

Under Simon Baloyi, appointed President and CEO in 2024, Sasol executed a disciplined reset. Fiscal 2025 ended June 30, 2025 with turnover of R249.1 billion (down 9 percent on lower oil prices and volumes), adjusted EBITDA of R51.8 billion, and free cash flow of R12.6 billion, up 75 percent, supported by a R4.3 billion settlement with Transnet. A Capital Markets Day in May 2025 laid out priorities around value over volume and the Southern Africa asset base.

Sasol's Secunda complex is regularly cited as one of the largest single-point greenhouse gas emitters in the world, and the company is South Africa's largest industrial polluter. It commits to net zero by 2050 with a glidepath including renewable power procurement, gas substitution for coal, energy efficiency, and research into sustainable fuels.

Socially, the company invests heavily in its host communities: R1.3 billion in skills development and R663 million in socioeconomic programs in FY2025, plus R42.6 billion in procurement from Black-owned businesses under South African empowerment policy. Its safety record, including one workplace fatality in FY2025, remains a stated priority.

Critics, including South African environmental NGOs and activist shareholders, argue that 2050 is too distant and the interim trajectory too gentle for the scale of Secunda's emissions. The company responds that an accelerated shutdown would strand national fuel supply and tens of thousands of jobs.

Sasol is a JSE Top 40 constituent and perennial member of South Africa's most valuable companies. It features in the Forbes Global 2000 and ranks among Africa's largest industrial employers. Its Fischer-Tropsch heritage is treated as a landmark of chemical engineering, and its empowerment and skills programs are regularly cited domestically.

Beyond climate pressure, Sasol has faced air quality litigation over Mpumalanga's Highveld pollution, community disputes around mining, and scrutiny of its safety record after historical plant incidents. The FY2025 Transnet settlement resolved a long-running infrastructure dispute in the company's favor to the tune of R4.3 billion. Carbon tax exposure in South Africa and potential EU border carbon costs on chemical exports are live regulatory risks.