Word: africa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Alchemy in South Africa...
...South Africa is ahead of the U.S. in its development of synthetic fuel. For a country boycotted by most of OPEC and without its own oil reserves, necessity has fired innovation. Sasol now provides less than 10% of the 240,000 bbl. a day of oil that South Africa requires, but the country is spending $6 billion to build two more Sasol plants, which are expected to meet about half of its needs by the early 1980s...
...South Africa was early to capitalize on its coal resources, estimated to be 25 billion tons, or about one-seventh of the U.S.'s total. In 1950, the South African Coal, Oil & Gas Corp., known as SASOL, was formed and by 1955 Sasol gasoline was being sold. The state-owned company, which charges just over $2 per gal. of gas, began showing a profit in 1973 and last year had pretax profits of $140 million on sales that totaled close to $ 1 billion. Although environmentalists were alarmed at the potential damage -indeed, smoke often hangs like a gray curtain...
...mixed with a catalyst made of iron and other substances. This catalyst transforms the gas into liquid oil. Production costs amount to $17 per bbl. That is well below the OPEC price of around $20 per bbl. and much less than the $31 per bbl. that South Africa would have to pay on the spot market...
...South Africa has contracted with Fluor Corp. of Irvine, Calif., to build the two additional, much larger plants...