Sasol expects earnings to rise over 20% for the first half of its 2023 financial year, lifted by a mix of factors including the higher Brent crude oil price and a relatively weaker rand/US dollar exchange rate. The company will deliver its half-year financials to end December 2022, in February, and expects earnings per share and headline earnings per share to increase more than 20%, compared with EPS of R23.98 and Heps of R15.21 in the prior comparative period.
The company said its stockpile of coal is being actively managed to maximise throughput to the Secunda operations. Higher rainfall led to the flooding of its west coal processing unit, leading to the factory’s outage, which lasted several days. Added to its woes were unplanned outages on the reforming units when the plant was restarted. “We are faced with prolonged downtime on 2 of 17 reformers, which are expected back online before the end of the 2023 financial year,” Sasol said.