Fuel Challenges: Environmental activists oppose the reopening of SA’s biggest oil refinery

South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) leader Desmond D’sa is among the environmental activists who are opposed to the reopening of the flood-damaged Sapref crude oil refinery in Durban. Instead, he believes the plant and the nearby Engen refinery in Durban should be decommissioned and the area rehabilitated. Environmental activists have slammed Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe’s call for the reopening of local refineries, including Sapref, South Africa’s biggest crude oil refinery that shut down after the floods that devastated KwaZulu-Natal in 2022.

Mantashe recently called for Durban-based Sapref and other similar facilities such as the South African Fuel Company and PetroSA, to return to operation to complement fuel output from Natref and Astron Refinery in Cape Town. “The push by Gwede Mantashe to urgently reopen Sapref reflects a narrow framing of energy security that prioritises short-term fuel price stability over long-term environmental and social sustainability,” said Professor Llewellyn Leonard, an expert on environmental governance issues. “While supply stability is important, reopening Sapref without first resolving its legacy of environmental harm risks reproducing the very injustices that communities in South Durban have endured for decades,” said Leonard.

He said Sapref operations over the decades left “significant environmental degradation”, which was met with “insufficient accountability” from the authorities and not enough was done to clean up the pollution. The plant suffered serious damage during the 2022 floods, leading to major pollution of a nearby beach and the surrounding area. South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) leader Desmond D’Sa said he “totally” agreed with Leonard and he, other local leaders and the surrounding communities were against the idea of reopening Sapref and other refineries.

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“I agree totally with Professor Leonard, and we’ve certainly put that across to the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Mineral and Petroleum Resources when they came here (Durban) in 2025,” said D’Sa. He said reopening Sapref would pose “an immediate danger” to nearby communities. The controversial sale of the refinery for R1 by joint owners Shell and BP to state-owned Central Energy Fund a couple of years ago raised eyebrows among environmental activists who prefer decommissioning and rehabilitating the area.

Commenting about the sale, D’Sa said: “The government taking over and buying the refinery has placed the burden on the South African taxpayer, because, if you go anywhere in the world, a refinery of this nature, after being affected by so much of water, so much of flooding, would not be allowed to restart.” A report on a study conducted on the refinery was expected to be submitted by March 31, followed by deliberations about the future of the facility. Among the key hurdles standing in the way of reopening the refinery is the structural damage caused by the floods and the environmental issue. Leonard criticised the minister’s framing of environmental regulations, community activism and litigation as obstacles.

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