DOWN A LION - FEEL UNSATISFIED

The South African Petroleum Industry Association (Sapia) now tells us that fuel imports are likely to become a permanent feature because local refiners cannot produce at their full capacity. The reason? Well, hum, it's because the bureaucrats that insist on regulating every aspect of the fuels industry couldn't decide on the specifications they wanted for unleaded fuel. The result was refiners took the minimal capital route (clever thinking, chaps). The new specifications were promulgated six months after the industry had started providing fuel to these specifications. And six months after Sapref, for example, had opened its new Large Increase In Octane project, otherwise known as LION. So, all crude refineries in South Africa have to import high octane blend stock and export a low octane petrol blend. The lower production rate is not the only problem. There is an acute shortage of skilled manpower, especially of operations and maintenance staff -- the very people responsible for day-to-day operations. Good lord, can this be true? There must surely be a bottomless pit of historically disadvantaged people who are just dying to work in an oil refinery. And we all know that it is just the reluctance of old style managers that they are not being employed.