PetroSA shuts - again

THIS time, nobody at PetroSa has put water in the wrong pipes, it is a strike by the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers' Union (CEPPWAWU) doing its annual damnedest to wrench even more money out of the oil companies -- which is their democratic right, of course, -- never mind that their members can only be described as the aristocrats of labour. Spigot recalls an anecdote told to him by an industry wage negotiator. One worker complained to him bitterly that company attempts to control the overtime boondoggle would mean that some workers would have to forgo their M-Net decoders. A quick scan of the parking lots around oil company installations confirms how poverty stricken these workers are. Spigot is not sure what the minimum wage is these days,but he is willing to bet that when you add on all the perks that go with working for an oil company, even a drum roller on the lowest scale is paid well above what is paid to, for example, junior reporters, social workers and even school teachers. And there are damn few on the lowest scale, by all accounts. The CEPPWAWU demand is for a 10 per cent increase -- well above the inflation rate. For that they are willing to bring refineries to a standstill. Spigot hopes their cars come to a standstill, along with those of the rest of us. Maybe that will restore some sanity.

iPayipi secrecy ( 2)

SPIGOT still finds it odd that, while ages and I.D. numbers of the directors are scrupulously removed from one set of documents submitted with the application of the iPayipi Consortium for a licence to build a Durban to the Reef pipeline, in another set of public documents their ID numbers are there for all to see. Maybe they better scrub them out quick. Not sure why though.

Who is Benhove Investments (Pty) Limited? Mystery solved

SILLY Spigot. There is no mystery concerning Benhove Investments. It is all laid out on the National Energy Regulator website. Benhove is owned by various family trusts ( none of which are yet registered, by the way). The trusts are all in the name of the directors and/or their families: Deyar Natha, Riaz Jawoodien, Clifford Elk and Enver Asmal. Nothing wrong with this, of course.

More on Ipayipi

SPIGOT has found out more about the people behind Ipayipi, the consortium that sprang from nowhere to snaffle a licence to build a petroleum fuels pipeline from Durban to the Reef. Not much sleuthing required as it happens. It is all there on the Nersa (National Energy Regulator) website, minus, of course, half of the consortium's submission,which it has kept secret for some or other reason. As an interesting aside, even in the public stuff, the Ipayipi directors have blanked out such deeply secret things like their ID numbers and in some cases, even their ages, though why Clifford Elk's age should be a secret, only he knows. As Spigot wades through the submission, any interesting observations will be logged here.

Curiouser still, the pipeline saga continues

HOW odd that the Iran Daily should be more informed about the pipeline saga than our own esteemed local organs. The July 21 edition carried a well informed (or well briefed?) piece which seemed to know things that could only have come from a very informed source in South Africa -- could this be the wonderfully named Ipayipi Consortium, Spigot wonders? Speaking of which, on reading their application to the national energy regulator ( Nersa) the fog covering exactly who the consortium is, lifts a little. Why, the chief executive officer is non other than one Deyer Natha, a South African of Indian extraction who once served as a director of BP Southern Africa (Pty) Limited. The other directors of the Ipayipi Consortium are Clifford Elk, who used to be the CEO of the Mineworkers Investment Company (the investment arm of the National Union of Mineworkers) and in that capacity sat on the BPSA board (MIC has shares in BPSA); Riaz Jawoodien, whose meteoric rise from political activist to oil industry expert has been a feature of the last ten years; and one Enver Asmal. Not exactly the "usual suspects" as Spigot once thought, but there you are. Will this group of worthies get a pipeline off or in the ground faster than Petronet? Watch this space.

Get rich, build a pipeline

WITH the economy having to import more and more fuel; with getting it to Gauteng where it is most needed a national priority; with pipeline, road and rail tanker capacity stretched to their limits; you would think that the best thing to do was to let those who have the experience, know-how, track record and skills (ie Petronet) simply get on with it. Ah, but that sounds like common sense. Too much to hope for. Instead we now have yet another bunch of amateurs hoping to climb on the band waggon. It goes under the hilarious name of IPayipi. Needless to say it is an "empowerment " group, a term now synonymous with" entitlement". Business Day, which reports the emergence of this group, fails to say who they are but there are no prizes for guessing that they will be the "usual suspects". Mind you, there could be an interesting battle between IPayipi and the Woesa consortium, which is made up of women who feel their gender entitles them to a share in the oil industry. It would be amusing if it wasn't so tragic. 2010 is just around the corner chaps. It won't look good if the fans cannot get around to see their favourite matches.

Ipayipi, ipayiyaaa!

SPEAKING of oil industry secrecy being congenitally based, it seems even new entrants get infected faster than a sneeze in a bird flu epidemic. The Ipayipi Consortium's application to the National Energy Regulator is a case in point. In the covering letter signed by the chief operating officer, Dayer Natha, it emerges that the day before handing in the application a meeting was held with National Energy Regulator staff, Dr Rod Crompton and Bathito Chokoe, to make sure that two out of the four documents submitted with the application for a licence were not "disclosed to the public". Call Spigot paranoid, but why the need for secrecy? And who is Benhove Investments (Pty) Limited? That is also on the Ipayipi letterhead .Shouldn't we be told? After all they are part of an organisation that plans to set up in a highly strategic business. More to the point, why did Nersa agree to keep this secrecy shroud in place?

New broom at Sapia

NEW broom at the South African Petroleum Industry Association (Sapia) Connel Ngcukana, has certainly given the organisation a boot up the proverbial since his appointment in June. From all accounts oil industry relations with Government (the department of Minerals and Energy, the Minister of Minerals and Energy etc al) were not exactly glowing when he took over. The industry tends to get nervous when it drifts too far from the centres of political power, especially in a regulated fuels market like ours. The DME has become tougher on the empowerment agenda, among other things, and not quite so grateful for the presence of multinationals in the country. To remedy this, Connell has set up monthly meetings on key industry issues with the DME and smoothed the way for more regular contacts between the Ministry and oil company executives. Sapia's External Affairs sub-committee has become busier, too. Contacts with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy have also improved. Nothing like regular networking to dispel common mis-perceptions about the industry. Surfacing once more is that hoary old belief that dividends should be kept in the country rather than paid to multinational company shareholders. (After all, why should they benefit from their investments, the capitalist swine?) Actually, networking is not enough. What is needed is a consistent, ongoing campaign of public information about the realities of the oil industry. Only such a commitment will eat into the crazy perceptions that exist out there -- especially among the newly enfranchised -- that, for example, manufacturing and selling petroleum products is easy. That would mean the oil industry abandoning its traditions of secrecy, of course. Don't hold your breath.

Sasol spinners

OH how glorious to be a Sasol spin doctor! For a corporate statement of fatuous flummery, it would be hard to beat the latest offering emanating from the hordes employed by that august organisation. A Sasol newsletter had this beauty to "explain" the catastrophic failure of its Qatar gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant: "….(a) back up solution...was likely to take until the middle of 2008 to develop… these events are not expected to have any impact on Sasol rolling out its GTL and coal -to- liquids technology". Ja, well, no fine. That's perfectly clear, then.

Green Scorpions target refineries

WHAT a wonderful thing is perception! The Green Scorpions are going after the refineries! This was the tone of a breathless report in Business Day announcing that our intrepid green police are to turn their attentions to refineries, having scored a direct hit on Mittal Steel. Everyone knows refineries are filthy so it should be a cinch to gather more hefty fines into government coffers. Never mind that the people who actually live and work in refineries spend every working hour worried about safety and pollution -- and have to -- since the authorities have allowed housing over the years to encroach on their boundaries. Full of self righteousness, little people (no doubt qualified with a degree in geography and social sciences) who contribute nothing to the economy, will now descend on those who do, to poke and probe, to make sure the refineries, in the words of Melissa Fourie, the Green Scorpions head, "are properly managed," as if the civil service has any expertise in such matters. Truly, one needs the patience of Job to run a refinery these days.

An unintended consequence?

THE law of unintended consequences may be about to strike. Jatropha curcas the wonder plant extolled as a life-changing agent by that secular saint, Bob Geldorf, could be an invasive alien! If it is true then far from being the perfect plant to supply bio-fuels, it might turn out to be another Port Jackson Willow -- the plant imported last century from Australia to stop the shifting sands of the Cape Flats and which today infests the Western Cape. Spigot hopes this is not true but there has been a deathly silence from the Department of Agriculture which still lists Jatropha as an invasive species.