Aug 26 2005
Sasol has produced almost 1,5 billion barrels of synthetic fuel from about 800 million tonnes of coal since the first sample of synthetic oil from coal was produced fifty years ago at its Sasolburg plant near Johannesburg in South Africa on 23 August 1955.
Regarded as a world technology leader in the production of coal-to-liquids (CTL), Sasol operates the world's only commercial scale synthetic plant at Secunda, where it produces 150 000 barrels of liquid fuel per day.
Sasol currently supplies about 28% of South Africa’s fuel needs from coal, saving the country more than R29 billion (US5,1 billion) a year in foreign exchange.
“Sasol has pioneered the commercial application of Fischer-Tropsch technology since the early 1950s when we built our first petrochemical plant at Sasolburg and began producing fuel based synfuels and chemicals. This pioneering spirit has resulted in Sasol being recognised as a global technology and innovation leader, and we are now poised to deliver the world's cleanest diesel early in 2006, when our first international commercial scale gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant at Doha in Qatar commences production,” says Sasol chief executive, Pat Davies.
Davies was alluding to Sasol's ability to achieve significant technology advances in areas ranging from goal gasification to Fischer-Tropsch Technology, applied catalysis, separation processes, synthesis gas conversion, and petrochemical and chemical process development and optimisation.
These innovations have enabled Sasol and other leading petrochemical companies to advance a global GTL industry which will produce more environmentally friendly liquid fuels and other products from natural gas. GTL diesel is virtually sulphur free and has been proven in the USA and Europe to be far more environmentally benign than existing diesel.
http://www.sasol.com