South African fuel producer Sasol has seen its value double in the last six months, with global conflicts helping the domestic supplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sasol was founded in 1950 as a state-owned company to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign fuel imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It opened its first two plants in Sasolburg and Secunda, producing synthetic fuels from coal mined in the surrounding areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since its founding, the company has grown exponentially into South Africa\u2019s largest fuel producer, supplying roughly 30% of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company has seen increased demand for its products in recent months due to international conflicts that threatened global fuel supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The war between the United States and Iran has led to the sporadic opening and closing of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical channel for oil tankers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Approximately 25% of oil transported by tankers passes through the strait as it moves from the Middle East to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The closure of the Strait prompted global oil prices to skyrocket, as supply became restricted for many countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sasol benefited from the reduced global supply and saw its share prices increase by roughly 33% within two weeks of the Straits closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last six months, the company\u2019s shares have nearly doubled from R104.76 on 2 January to R200.20 at closing on 24 July, giving it a market cap of R129 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was R60 billion higher than its market capitalisation of around R68 billion at the start of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within this impressive growth, the company\u2019s share price reached a high of R242 per share in May 2025, tracking higher global oil prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With oil prices climbing down from near $100 a barrel on Monday (27 July), the group is currently trading lower at R188.38 a share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This gives it a lower market cap of over R120 billion, but this is still significantly higher than in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the global oil crisis, some of Sasol\u2019s success was attributed to improved efficiency in its refineries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These improvements have come as South Africa\u2019s power supplier, Eskom, has seen improved energy production in the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously, Eskom struggled to meet the country\u2019s energy demands and was forced to implement loadshedding to address the shortfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom has not implemented loadshedding in the last year, improving efficiency across the country\u2019s businesses, including Sasol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are the ten companies in the JSE Top 40 with the largest share price growth this year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n MTN was another company that has seen impressive growth in the last six months, driven by its expansion into fintech services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mobile service provider currently has a market cap of over R421 billion, and has seen its share price grow from R169.92 on 2 February to R227.19 on 24 July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The growth has been driven by increased demand for mobile data services, with the company reporting a 35.4% increase in revenue from this area in the 2026 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company also saw revenue growth from its fintech service, Momo, which rose 20% in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fintech service gives MTN customers access to easy online payment systems from their phones, a system in high demand across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Capitec is outside the top ten fastest-growing companies, but has performed well in the last year, growing to a market cap of over R535 billion, with shares trading at R4,609.14 on 24 July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The performance has seen its value grow larger than that of many other banks in South Africa, including Nedbank and Absa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bank’s performance has been driven by its focus on online banking, with online transactions increasing in the last six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has also seen a large increase in its client base, with over 15 million online banking clients at the end of the last financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This represented a growth of roughly 19% from the previous year, demonstrating its goal to grow its number of customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bank saw its headline earnings rise by 23% in the last financial year, with the strong growth continuing into the new year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last six months, Capitec\u2019s share price has grown from R4,189.50 on 2 February to R4,609.14 on 24 July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A South African fuel producer has seen its value double in the last six months, with global conflicts helping the domestic supplier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":794008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2081726936523358545","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[1798,1164,19274,28,2240,25934,25075],"class_list":["post-867560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-capitec","tag-eskom","tag-fintech","tag-mtn","tag-sasol","tag-sasolburg","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867560","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867560"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867608,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867560\/revisions\/867608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Company<\/th> Share price
2 January 2026<\/th>Share price
24 July 2026<\/th>Growth<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Sasol<\/td> R104.76<\/td> R200.20<\/td> +91.1%<\/td><\/tr> BHP<\/td> R509.62<\/td> R698.62<\/td> +37.1%<\/td><\/tr> MTN<\/td> R169.92<\/td> R227.19<\/td> +33.7%<\/td><\/tr> South32<\/td> R39.77<\/td> R52.00<\/td> +30.8%<\/td><\/tr> AB InBev<\/td> R1,047.43<\/td> R1,367.61<\/td> +30.6%<\/td><\/tr> Glencore<\/td> R92.53<\/td> R120.70<\/td> +30.4%<\/td><\/tr> Aspen<\/td> R113.43<\/td> R146.01<\/td> +28.7%<\/td><\/tr> Anglo American<\/td> R693.55<\/td> R830.88<\/td> +19.8%<\/td><\/tr> OUTsurance<\/td> R70.80<\/td> R80.83<\/td> +14.2%<\/td><\/tr> Exxaro<\/td> R181.14<\/td> R203.82<\/td> +12.5%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n MTN and Capitec are continuing to grow<\/h2>\n\n\n\n