{"id":813760,"date":"2025-02-24T08:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T06:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=813760"},"modified":"2025-02-24T08:28:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T06:28:16","slug":"pain-for-south-african-energy-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/813760\/pain-for-south-african-energy-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"Pain for South African energy giant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Petrochemical group Sasol’s earnings dropped massively in the first half of the financial year ended December 2024, tanking 48% over the comparable period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revenue of R122.1 billion was 10% lower than the prior period, mainly as a result of a 13% decline in the average rand per barrel Brent crude oil price and a significant decline in refining margins and fuel price differentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also experienced a 5% decrease in sales volumes due to lower production and market demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earnings were also hit by the impairments of the Secunda and Sasolburg liquid fuels refineries’ cash-generating units, which were both fully impaired during the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, earnings for the period dropped to R4.75 billion, down from R9.18 billion before, a 48% drop.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s basic earnings per share decreased by 52% to R7.22 per share, and headline earnings per share decreased by 31% to R14.13 per share compared to the prior period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sasol did not delcare a dividend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that its dividend policy is based on 30% of free cash flow generated provided that net
debt (excluding leases) is sustainably below US$4 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the reporting period, free cash flow was a deficit of R1.1 billion and the net debt at 31 December 2024 was US$4.3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This exceeds the net debt trigger, therefore no interim dividend was declared,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the group’s different segments, it’s clear that the fuels segment was the main drag on operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mining segment saw earnings jump by more than 100% to R2.3 billion compared to the prior period due to a revised coal supply agreement pricing with Secunda Operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was partially offset by lower US$ export coal prices, lower internal sales volumes and higher total costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gas production saw earnings jump 65% to R3.9 billion compared to the prior period due to higher gas prices, higher gas production and lower total cost\u2014partly offset by higher remeasurement items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chemicals businesses in America, Africa and Eurasia each had different performances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa saw improved sales, up 1%, while the Americas and Eurasia were down\u2014the latter most recording a loss of R100 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the fuels business was the main drag, recording a loss of R1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to lower Brent crude oil prices, refining margins and product differentials, a stronger exchange rate, lower production, higher feedstock costs, and lower earnings generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African petrochemical giant Sasol has seen its earnings tank in the first half of the year, with no dividend in sight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":812744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[895,2240],"class_list":["post-813760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-financial-results","tag-sasol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813776,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813760\/revisions\/813776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}