## sasol oil 

Sasol Oil markets fuels blended at Secunda and refined through its 63,6% share in Natref oil refinery at Sasolburg. Products include petrol, diesel, jet fuel, illuminating paraffi n, liquefied petroleum gas, fuel oils, bitumen and lubricants. It imports fuels to balance its product slate and meet contractual commitments. Sasol Oil operates 418 Sasol- and Exel $^{®}$-branded retail convenience centres in South Africa and exports fuels to Southern Africa. 

## Turning our performance around 

Sasol Oil made good progress in the year. We improved our safety performance, enhanced our legal compliance structures, increased production and sales volumes and turned around our fi nancial position. We continued to focus on health and environmental matters. We also made headway in our efforts to advance employee diversity and facilitate black economic empowerment in pursuit of the group’s strategic goals of delivering on the South African transformation agenda and developing our people. 

In line with Sasol’s imperative to nurture and grow its existing asset base, we continued to invest in maintaining and upgrading our joint-venture Natref crude oil refinery, and in expanding our storage tank capacity at the Alrode depot in the country’s economic heartland of Gauteng. 

## Improving safety 

Sasol Oil is pleased to report its best safety performance in four years. In 2010, our RCR improved to 0,53 (0,40 excluding Natref) down from 1,11 in 2009. We are encouraged by the downward trend and attribute this to a number of factors. These include leadership and the formal introduction 

Sasol Oil is also committed to developing and empowering its people through skills training and leadership development. 

of a behaviour-based safety programme. Consequence management, as well as rewarding safety improvements, has also been integral to this improved result. 

## Enhancing compliance 

The critical work of ongoing education and compliance training remains a priority. 

At Sasol Oil, we have worked to embed a culture of compliance and have put a number of structures in place to improve our performance in this regard. 

Additional information about competition law matters can be found in the consolidated annual fi nancial statements, under note 57.4 – Litigation. 

## Boosting profi ts 

Stronger petroleum product prices and improved marketing margins, along with higher sales volumes and reduced costs, helped Sasol Oil produce satisfactory financial results for 2010. This was despite the strength of the rand, which had a dampening effect on the local value of largely dollar-denominated fuel prices. 

Turnover decreased 6% to R48 411 million as a result of lower crude and product prices. Sales volumes rose 7% to 10,55 million cubic metres (Mm$^{3}$) as 

the economy started to recover. Our gross margin increased 69% to R3 884 million. We reduced cash fixed costs by 3%. Sasol Oil posted an operating profi t of R1 364 million from an operating loss of R351 million in 2009. 

We increased the volume of fuel components purchased from Sasol Synfuels by 9,5% to 5,52 million Mm$^{3}$ as the operating reliability of the selective catalytic cracker improved. Natref had a difficult year. Unplanned shutdowns and an extension to the scheduled shutdown resulted in Sasol’s share of crude throughput decreasing by 4,3% to 3,34 million Mm$^{3}$. Despite this, the refinery achieved an improvement in its white product yield to 89,7% from 88,3%. 

In addition to Sasol Synfuels’ liquid fuel production and Sasol’s share of Natref’s output, Sasol Oil imported some 1,12 million Mm$^{3}$ of liquid fuel. This helped us to continue supplying around a third of South Africa’s total requirement. 

We refined our plans to reduce the company’s environmental footprint. We already benchmark our performance by reporting monthly on CO$_{2}$ emission data, energy usage, total energy consumption and atmospheric emissions. A rigorous programme to avoid contamination at facilities is also in place. 

## Upgrading Natref 

In 2010, we continued to upgrade Natref and improve its stability. We invested in revamping the existing diesel unifi ner, which was completed in April and has already increased its throughput. We also 

