Sasol’s Secunda facility, which was recently raided by NPA investigators. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images) As the scrutiny of Sasol’s operations at its Benfield facilities in Secunda intensifies, SA’s largest petrochemical and chemical manufacturing company continues to maintain its innocence in the face of seven-year-old allegations by a whistleblower that it unlawfully discharged hazardous chemical waste into the Klipspruit River between 2012 and 2019.
This comes after Sasol abruptly halted answering questions during a meeting of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment on 4 August.
The company closed ranks after National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) investigators executed fresh search warrants at its Secunda operations while executives were appearing before the committee.
Sasol’s written responses to the committee’s questions revealed that investigators spent two days conducting detailed inspections and gathering evidence from the Benfield plant and its surrounding infrastructure.
The evidence gathered included water and chemical samples from multiple control points, along with inspections of the infrastructure cited by whistleblower Ian Erasmus in 2019 – specifically the chemical sewer network, isolation valves and routes to the API dams (containment reservoirs named after the American Petroleum Institute standard used to design them).
Despite this, Sasol maintains its innocence, which is echoed in its assertion that the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and the NPA do not have a case against it.
“Sasol does not believe that there is a basis for any criminal proceedings to be instituted in relation to its Benfield operations... Sasol is not in a position to speculate or respond on behalf of the NPA regarding the basis on which it may consider any further proceedings,” said the company.
Sasol’s defence
In its written responses, Sasol answered general questions regarding air quality roadmaps, capital expenditure (citing R16-billion spent on environmental initiatives since 2018) and accountability processes. But it systematically stonewalled direct questions about water quality tests on surrounding water sources at the time of Erasmus’s allegations by invoking its constitutional right against self-incrimination.
While tight-lipped on the criminal merits, Sasol offered a granular, step-by-step technical defence to prove that chemical waste from the Benfield plant could not physically reach the Klipspruit or Vaal River systems.
According to Sasol, the facility was engineered with redundant, closed-loop containment systems designed specifically to prevent toxic run-off:
Step 1: Primary Containment & Bunding: Toxic process chemicals, including vanadium, potassium carbonate and diethanolamine, are handled within fully concreted, bunded areas designed to catch any localised spills.
Step 2 & 3: The Chemical Sewer & Oily Water Network: Any run-off or wash-down water drains directly into a dedicated chemical sewer. This network does not discharge into the environment; it routes wastewater exclusively into Secunda’s internal oily water system, feeding into API dams 1 and 2.
Step 4: Fail-safe Valve Architecture: Addressing Erasmus’s specific claim regarding a faulty chemical sewer valve, Sasol argued that even if the valve failed or was left wide open, wastewater would still be directed straight into the API containment dams. Operational valve failure, Sasol noted, is anticipated by design, triggering multiple downstream controls.
Step 5: Waste Removal: Effluent in the API dams is treated for internal reuse. Any liquid unsuitable for recycling is pumped into bunded storage tanks and hauled away to the licensed Medium-Term Vanadium (MTV) landfill facility or a Class A landfill.
Step 6: Physical Segregation: Sasol emphasised that its clean-water circuit (API Dams 3 and 4) is intentionally, physically separated from the contaminated wastewater circuit (API Dams 1 and 2), preventing cross-contamination.
Responding to data that Erasmus presented to the portfolio committee that showed a dramatic spike in vanadium levels, Sasol dismissed the claims as a misinterpretation of routine internal sampling.
“The graph presented by Mr Erasmus that indicates a spike in vanadium is not conspicuous... The graph is representative of laboratory tests of the contaminated water contents in API Dam 2, where contaminated water, containing vanadium, is contained and treated for further use in the factory’s production processes,” said Sasol.
Scrutiny seven years in the making
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When the NPA first instituted charges against Sasol relating to Erasmus’s allegations in 2022, the Mail & Guardian reported that the entity could face up to R10-million in fines if found guilty of unlawfully disposing of hazardous chemicals into the Vaal River system.
While those charges were provisionally withdrawn in 2025, the fresh search warrants and presentations made to the portfolio committee by the DFFE’s chief director for enforcement, Frances Craigie, revealed that the department had not only expanded its investigation to include Benfield Phases 3 and 4, but was also looking into the possibility that Sasol officials may have provided false or misleading information to environmental management inspectors during the initial investigation.
The new investigation includes 16 additional witness statements, and investigating teams are still collecting further evidence, Craigie told MPs on 4 August.
With the Green Scorpions analysing freshly seized evidence from Secunda and the NPA continuing to reinstate charges, Sasol's arguments and Erasmus’s allegations may soon move from the portfolio committee to the Mpumalanga High Court, where its failsafe engineering defence will face a legal test. DM
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