Oh, Engen, Engen, Engen!

WHO would have Herb Payne's job? Herb, poor fellow is Engen's spokesman and yesterday he had to stick his head over the parapet to explain away yet another fire at the Engen refinery. This time it was a pretty small one, but any fire in the flammable atmosphere of an oil refinery is bad, bad news. What's up? Well, as Spigot recalls, the Engen refinery was formerly the Mobil one. It was the first to be built in South Africa, more than 50 years ago. Now, even big pipes wear out. After a certain point even the best maintenance regime is not enough. Mobil knew this more than anyone so when the opportunity to exit South Africa covered in anti-apartheid glory, came, Mobil took it, leaving new owners to face the capital crunch coming down the track. And here we now are.The Engen refinery needs a total overhaul. Who will pay this kind of money when we have a national Energy Regulator consisting of amateurs or ideologues and a Ministry of Minerals and Energy rapidly being stripped of any expertise it once had? Solution? Not more regulation but less. Not politically correct attempts to " manage" the oil industry either by stuffing it with people with not much more than pigment in their favour, or supporting hopelessly expensive and untried biofuels plans. Let the market decide and leave it at that. The fire yesterday, which broke out at the refinery's vacuum unit and was extinguished in 10 minutes, followed a massive blaze at the refinery two weeks ago. Thankfully, there were no injuries.