SASOL Integrated Report 2025_Final_28 August 2025 - Flipbook - Page 106
INTRODUCTION
ABOUT SASOL
STRATEGIC OVERVIEW
BUSINESSES
ESG
REMUNERATION REPORT
DATA AND ASSURANCE / ADMINISTRATION
SOCIAL – LABOUR continued
ENDURING OPERATIONS
Our commitment
Sasol is committed to achieving world class operations (WCO)
through an embedded operational excellence culture.
PERFORMANCE
FY25 OUTCOMES
Following the internal streamlining of the broader Sasol,
the leadership of Operations and Projects is focused on
the improvement of operational performance on multiple
levels, from safety to production volumes and cost
efficiency, which remains aligned with the core principles
of our Strategy; “To Strengthen Our Foundation”.
Building on the successes achieved and insights gained
from the strategic pillars and the Sasol 2.0 programme,
a structured Business Turnaround Programme was
launched with ten very specific improvement areas
for FY25 to ensure a stronger focus and deeper
understanding of the challenges being experienced
within Operations.
HSI
prevention
Buy Better,
Spend Better
Coal
management
Natref
Solomon
Increase
Production
Volumes
Turn
Around (SDs)
Excellence
Consolidated
Capital
Management
Cost
improvement
Employee
activation
Gas Programme,
Sasolburg
configuration
This programme addresses the fundamentals of
Operations to achieve the World Class Operations aim of
‘Safe, efficient and reliable operations’ as highlighted by
our CEO in his FY25 Top Priorities.
The Sasol targeted crude oil break even price further
ensures that Operations maintains a holistic end-to-end
business perspective of its activities.
Our group approach
Applying the principles of Transparency, Inspection and Adaptation as an integrated part of the business
rhythm remain the foundation of Sasol’s approach to continuous improvement.
Strengthening today, building a sustainable tomorrow
Digital delivery to enable and improve our
Operations is focused on three key areas.
Firstly, in order to model and predict physical
systems (chemical processes, equipment, logistical
infrastructure), methodologies have been developed
to integrate engineering and scientific principles
with machine learning to create physics-informed
AI systems that are optimising our operations.
Secondly, digitalised operations management
solutions have been developed and deployed to
enhance the productivity of our workforce and to
provide better and more immediate information
on plant performance.
Finally, the connected worker programme is
focused on improved efficiency, safety and quality
of production processes by using digital tools and
platforms to connect workers to their data. This
programme has progressed significantly during
the past two years, seeing the deployment of a
managed private mobile network at our Secunda
site, implementation of a device supply and
support process and deployment of devices to
enable various operations initiatives.
The digital drive across the three focus areas is
underpinned by various digital skills development
programmes, including supporting technical
personnel with study aid for embarking on a
structured Master’s degree that has been scoped
around the practical use of data science by
engineers in the chemical industry.
Sasol’s Agile journey, aligned with Sasol’s core value
of “Be Resilient”, continues to gain momentum across
the organisation. Ongoing interest and participation
in the Sasol accredited Scrum Master upskilling
programme reflects a growing commitment to Agile
practices, positively impacting both project and
team environments, and inspiring leaders to adopt
Agile approaches within their teams.
A strong emphasis has been placed on clear risk
accountabilities and leadership assurance as part of
the ‘HSI Prevention’ focus area, with specific focus
on ensuring unambiguous roles and responsibilities
for all participants in activities that can lead to
high-severity incidents.
Significant focus and resources at leadership,
organisational and operational levels are being
directed to improving production volumes, based
on Sasol’s OE principles and focusing on sustainable
performance over time. Sasol’s approach includes
the use of the Overall Equipment Effectiveness
(OEE) metric and loss accounting processes to
identify and quantify losses. This is followed by
focused root cause analysis and gap closure
management using Sasol’s in-house developed
digitised deviation management process.
Coal supply has had the biggest impact on Secunda
production volumes. The deteriorating quality of
coal to Secunda Operations (SO) has been a major
focus, with the ‘coal value chain’ taking a holistic
approach to coal supply and processing, with Mining
and Operations working in close collaboration.
Various initiatives were launched, including
investigating technology options for destoning, as
well as a renewed focus on geological visibility, mine
design and section deployment, infrastructure for
effective mining, equipment availability, critical
stonework sections and long-term supply planning.
The coal value chain is also a key focus area for the
digitalisation drive to assist in managing the risk
of coal supply disruption and ensuring adherence
to quality. Some highlights include: a digital quality
tracking and visualisation application throughout
the whole coal value chain; a constraints
programming model to automate the scheduling
of stackers and reclaimers of coal heaps; various
stochastic simulations to evaluate and optimise
future scenarios and projects, such as coal
beneficiation, fine coal export, etc.
SASOL INTEGRATED REPORT 2025 105
A technology and viability decision on destoning was
concluded and the project is well underway with
expected Beneficial Operation during the latter part
of 2025. Drawing on the innovating spirit of our
Sasol people, a significant reduction in capital
expenditure was achieved by repurposing the
Twistdraai coal export plant as a coal destoning plant.
Significant progress has been made regarding the
interdependence between ‘Consolidated Capital
Management’ and ‘Turn Around (SD) Excellence’,
with continued focus by the reliability and integrity
teams to understand equipment failure mechanisms
and identify either improved ways of working, or
where an overly conservative approach is being
taken. This has resulted in SO extending their run
cycle between turnarounds from four years to
five years, which has a significant positive impact
on both production capacity and the average capital
cost of turnarounds.
In maintaining the focus on excelling in the basics,
Operations have continued to expand Communities
of Practice (CoP) for various fundamental Operations
Core Processes in the Integrity Management,
Maintenance Management and Production
Management environments. This allows subject
matter experts across operations to mobilise around
common challenges and share learnings and best
practices.
The respective CoPs also promote sensible
standardisation and development of fit for purpose
training material for the various stakeholders that
participate to ensure successful outcomes.
A Self Assurance Quick Reference Guide was
developed and rolled out for several Operations
Core Processes to support Operations Leadership
(Area Manager to Vice President) to assess practices
from both a leading and lagging perspective.
