Sasol applied for postponement to comply with minimum emissions act in 2025

SECUNDA – Residents and environmental fanatics recently expressed their concerns that Sasol’s last meeting about emissions was held in December last year.

According to Mr Alex Anderson, Senior Manager of Group External Communication at Sasol, the public consultation sessions held in December, were disrupted by the community.

“We are currently liaising with the local licensing authority of the Gert Sibande District Municipality with regards to further public consultation sessions to be held in the Secunda area,” said Mr Anderson.

“A review is being conducted by the licensing authority with a view to optimise these sessions.

“We will support the objectives of the licensing authority to ensure that the desired outcomes of the meetings are met in a constructive and meaningful manner.

“We continue to engage with the licensing authority and await the finalisation of the abovementioned review process to guide Sasol in hosting these sessions.”

Sasol applied for postponements to apply with the emissions regulations act by 2025.

According to Mr Anderson, the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act required existing plants to meet more stringent point source emission standards by 2015, (existing plant standards) and standards applicable to newly commissioned plants.

These are collectively referred to as the minimum emission standards.

“Meeting some of these standards require retrofitting abatement technologies of some of our existing plants,” said Mr Anderson.

“For this purpose, Sasol developed and is implementing air quality improvement roadmaps to enable compliance with the minimum emission standards along extended compliance timeframes, enabled by postponements previously granted by the National Air Quality Officer in 2015 and 2018.

“We also confirm that we are complying with the conditions stipulated in the atmospheric emission licenses, which incorporates the conditions of these postponements applicable to the Sasol Secunda site.

“Sasol is on track with the implementation of abatement technology in accordance with these roadmaps to meet the new plant standards by 2025.

“Improvement associated with the implementation of the roadmaps can already be demonstrated.

“Our multi-year offset programme, to address sources of non-industrial pollution in conjunction with our roadmaps, are also progressing well.”