Sapref for R1 – clean break for corporations, death sentence for communities

Built in 1963 on land zoned for black and brown communities under apartheid, the Sapref oil refinery is embedded within densely populated, low-income neighbourhoods in south Durban: Umlazi, Wentworth, Chatsworth, Isipingo, Clairwood, Bluff and Merebank. 

These communities bore the health and environmental costs of the refinery for decades, but none were consulted about the recent opaque transaction that saw the Central Energy Fund (CEF) buy the defunct refinery for just R1.

No reparations or accountability were enforced for the decades of damage either. 

As discussed in a recent two-part investigation into the deal by Open Secrets, the refinery was sold to CEF on a clean break principle, which absolves previous owners Shell and BP of all historical liabilities. CEF did the deal despite its own due diligence highlighting the massive environmental and possible legal liabilities associated with Sapref. 

In that due diligence, legal firm Fasken warned that the Sapref refinery regularly exceeded the limits of its atmospheric emissions licences and that CEF may find itself subject to criminal prosecution if it did not address this after the purchase. 

CEF and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy did not respond to the questions sent to them by Open Secrets.

For decades, Sapref was the largest refinery in South Africa, refining up to 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The Engen refinery that sits just 700 meters away produced 120,000 barrels per day (bbl) until it permanently shut down in 2022. 

At their peak, these two refineries were responsible for refining up to 80% of the country’s petroleum products. At the same time, south Durban recorded astronomically high rates of illness – over half the children at Settler’s primary school were diagnosed with asthma, and leukaemia was 24 times the national average. It came to be known as “cancer alley”.

The CEF intends to increase the capacity of Sapref to 600,000 bbl. One can only imagine what this production capacity is going to do to communities which have routinely suffered through a number of incidents caused by these refineries over the years. 

This includes a major explosion at the Engen refinery in 2020, which triggered a large fire, burnt nearby homes and left several injured – including a child who sustained burns to her hands and face. For many, it was yet another traumatic chapter in a long history of environmental justice in the area.

South Africa is one of the top 15 biggest contributors to fossil fuel emissions in the world. In 2023, South Africa also had the highest rate of inequality in the world. Choosing to increase the capacity of the refinery would mean more climate catastrophes, which would disproportionately impact poor people. Marginalised communities do not benefit from South Africa’s carbon-intense economy, but do bear the immense costs of it.

An irony is that the Sapref refinery had to close down in 2022 and was rendered inoperable due to the KZN floods. It also leached petrochemicals into the surrounding water and land. Efforts to increase Sapref’s refining capacity will come at a cost – not only from the efforts to rebuild the refinery through the state and public funds, but the costs of the impacts borne by poor communities. It means more extreme weather events, houses and infrastructure damaged, pollutants, more flaring, more water contamination and more public health crises.

False promises have real consequences

In June 2025, floods swept through Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. It is estimated that 109 people were killed, with many still missing and displaced. As Daily Maverick environmental journalist Kristin Engel reported, on 9 June 2025, the Mthatha Dam was already at 99.8% capacity before sudden upstream rains raised its level to 102% by midnight, causing it to spill.

Three years before this, in April 2022, 544 people were killed in the KwaZulu-Natal floods, which displaced 42,000 people and directly impacted 140,000 people. The province saw more than 500mm of rain fall in just two days. 

For comparison, the average rainfall is supposed to be around 70-90mm spread over nine days. It was termed the “largest natural disaster” to take place in the province, except that these are not natural disasters. They are events that are caused and exacerbated by the climate crisis and adversely affect the poor.

In both instances, informal settlements and townships were hit the hardest, as these are built on floodplains and riverbanks due to historical and economic exclusion from safer land. 

Engel cites a study published in May 2025 showing flooding is the most common climate-related impact in South Africa and on the continent, followed by extreme storms, with the east coast being the most affected region. Cape Town was found to be a hotspot for drought.

Another recent study published in the Communications and Earth Environment journal concluded that the 2022 KZN floods were more extreme as a result of climate change. The study used “climate attribution modelling” and concluded that the rainfall in April 2022 in KZN was “between 40% and 107% heavier than it would have been in a cooler, pre-industrial climate”.

Our country remains spatially divided across racial lines. A consequence of environmental racism is that historically black and brown communities are pushed not only onto the margins of the city, but into the path of pollution and toxicity. 

We still rely on drainage systems built in the apartheid era, which are often in worse condition or even non-existent. Informal settlements are flooded due to erratic weather conditions caused by an increasingly extreme climate, such as unprecedentedly high rainfall out of season. 

As climate change accelerates, inequality deepens, leaving the marginalised to bear the brunt of these extreme events.

Even inland, in cities like Johannesburg, informal settlements do not have the drainage infrastructure to cope with flooding and other erratic and extreme weather caused by climate change. Warmer atmospheres in already warm provinces like KZN and the Eastern Cape hold more water vapour, in turn leading to more intense rainfall. Heavier rain in shorter periods results in flash floods, overwhelmed drainage systems and bursting riverbanks.

Despite these known risks, systemic failures in governance continue to undermine climate resilience and adaptation. After the catastrophic 2022 KZN floods, the government allocated R1-billion to improve flooding infrastructure to ensure that such devastation would not happen again. These funds remain unaccounted for today – some survivors continue to live in shelters and tents. Less than 10% of the allocated amount reached communities. 

In July 2025, more people were killed in the Eastern Cape, KZN and other provinces due to flooding. R1.4-billion was allocated to municipalities after the floods in 2025 across five provinces, but these allocations will be ineffective without transparency and accountability. 

Generational scars and toxic inheritance: the buck stops nowhere

The state talks up the jobs provided by refineries, but when Sapref was operational, only 800 of 2,000 workers were permanent employees. The rest were outsourced to 15 different contractors. 

Outsourcing is a strategic tool used by companies to ensure that the labour force is divided. Aside from it translating to lower-paid workers and higher profits, it limits collective bargaining and unionisation and ensures that conglomerates like Shell and BP outsource the consequences of dangers in the workplace.

Allan Holmes has worked at both the Sapref and Engen refineries. He spoke to me about the trauma being passed down through generations. His father was a refinery artisan. Their family was moved to Wentworth under the Group Areas Act when Allan was a child, to the barracks – a transit area that was directly opposite the Engen refinery gates. He grew up with asthma, like many other children in the community, his mother having died from breast cancer.  

Holmes recalls when the Engen refinery exploded in 2020 and rocked through the community like an earthquake. He says that they all ran to a nearby field when this happened with their belongings and ID books, but that none of the refineries have or had engaged the communities on what to do in these events. He speaks of the never-ending legal battle he has had with Engen and the asthma and cancer they get from these refineries “for free”.

Bongani Mthembu, the air quality officer and health officer from the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), noted a decline in air pollution since 2022. Mthembu says now that the refineries are not functional, the air quality is the best it has been in years.

A country that chooses fire

Instead of mitigating the effects of climate change, the government wants to rebuild and restart the refinery under the false banner of “job creation” and “economic growth”.  But long-term economic growth depends on decarbonisation of the economy in a just manner that prioritises the interests of those most impacted by climate change – including vulnerable workers, women, children, the aged, the poor and persons with disabilities – not a deepening dependence on fossil fuels. 

The reality of employment by the refinery also stands in stark contrast to the government hype: as Mthembu explains, immediate communities promised jobs from the refineries regularly fail the medical tests to work there. 

Allan Holmes explained that the workers usually do not get medical aid or pensions, and the immediate communities often do not get jobs or even access to a community clinic.  

Residents and refinery workers told me that they believe that refineries are not held to account for violations like explosions and spillages due to their links with state bodies.

The enduring legacy of apartheid includes environmental racism, the lack of infrastructure and severe underdevelopment in areas historically allocated to black and brown people. It is compounded by the mismanagement of funds at all levels of government. 

The Sapref sale, then, is more than a R1 transaction. It is the reflection of a state that prioritises profit over people. The same government that cannot account for billions allocated for preventing flooding disasters now plans to revive a refinery shut down by flooding. 

When the state expands refineries like Sapref and municipal money is diverted away from addressing apartheid-era flooding infrastructure, we will continue to see the climate crisis unfold at the cost of lives and the futures of poor people.  

This is not recovery, it is betrayal. DM

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