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ITEM 4.
INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY
4.A
History and development of the company
Sasol Limited, the ultimate holding company of our group, is a public company. It was incorporated under
the laws of the Republic of South Africa in 1979 and has been listed on the JSE since October 1979. Our
registered office and corporate headquarters are at 1 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, 2196, South Africa, and our
telephone number is +27 11 441 3111. Our agent for service of process in the United States is Puglisi and
Associates, 850 Library Avenue, Suite 204, P.O. Box 885, Newark, Delaware 19715.
In 1947, the South African Parliament enacted legislation detailing the establishment of an oil-from-coal
industry in South Africa. This followed 20 years after the publication of a White Paper by Parliament, aiming to
protect the country’s balance of payments against increasing crude oil imports in view of the lack of domestic
crude oil reserves. As a result of this initiative, the South African government in 1950, through the Industrial
Development Corporation of South Africa Limited (IDC), a state-owned entity, formed our predecessor company
known as the South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation Limited to manufacture fuels and chemicals from
indigenous raw materials.
Construction work on our synthetic fuels plant at Sasolburg (Sasol One), in the Free State province, about
80 kilometres (km) south of Johannesburg, commenced in 1952, and in 1955, the original Sasol One production
units were commissioned. We supplied our first gasoline and diesel to motorists at Sasolburg in November 1955.
The operation of this plant was based on a combination of the German fixed-bed and the US fluidized-bed
Fischer-Tropsch technologies, together with German Lurgi coal gasification technologies for the synthetic
production of gasoline, diesel, other liquid fuels and chemical feedstock from coal.
During the 1960s, we became a major supplier of raw materials for the chemical industry. This included
products such as solvents for paints, butadiene and styrene for synthetic rubber and ammonia for nitrogenous
fertilizer. When our first naphtha cracker became operational in the mid-1960s, we added ethylene and propylene
for the plastics industry to our product portfolio.
In 1966, we completed construction of our first gas pipeline, which connected 250 industrial companies in
the greater Johannesburg area to pipeline gas.
In December 1967, Natref was incorporated and, at the same time, construction of the oil refinery
commenced at Sasolburg. The refinery was commissioned in February 1971. Currently, we, as the major
shareholder, and Total South Africa (Pty) Limited (Total), a subsidiary of Total S.A. of France, hold 63.64% and
36.36%, respectively, in Natref.
The increased oil prices of the early seventies presented us with an opportunity to increase our synfuels
production capacity and assist in reducing South Africa’s dependence on imported crude oil. We commenced the
construction of Sasol Two in Secunda, 145 km southeast of Johannesburg in the Mpumalanga province, in 1976,
and in March 1980, this plant produced its first synthetic fuel. During the final construction phases of Sasol Two
in 1979, work commenced on the construction of our third synfuels and chemicals plant, Sasol Three, which was
completed in 1982. The virtually identical operations of Sasol Two and Sasol Three were merged in 1993 to
form Sasol Synthetic Fuels, now Sasol Synfuels.
Towards the time of the completion of the Sasol Three project, all our technical and research and
development services were consolidated into a new company, Sasol Technology. Since then, Sasol Technology
has been an important area of our activities, responsible for research and development, technology development
and commercialization, project management and specialist engineering skills.
In October 1979, Sasol Limited was listed on the JSE, and 70% of its share capital was privatized. We used
the proceeds from the private and public issue to acquire 100% shareholding in Sasol One and 50% shareholding
in Sasol Two and Sasol Three from the IDC. During 1983 we acquired the IDC’s remaining interest in Sasol
Two and the remaining interest in Sasol Three was acquired effective 1 July 1990. Subsequently, the interest in
our share capital held by the South African government through the IDC was further reduced to its current 7.8%.