South Africa’s largest fuel refinery shuts amid violence, looting
South African Petroleum Refineries (Sapref) has declared force majeure and closed its doors amid ongoing violence and looting in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Sores of people looted malls and destroyed property in the two provinces for a fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, disrupting the supply of services in many companies.
Sapref is the largest refinery in Southern Africa and accounts for 35% of the country’s refining capacity.
The Shell/BP joint venture issued the notice of force majeure to clients late on Tuesday.
“Due to the civil unrest in the country and disruption of supply routes in and out of Kwazulu-Natal, suppliers of materials critical to Sapref operations communicated the suspension of deliveries to the refinery due to safety concerns for their staff and damages to their vehicles on the roads,” it said.
“As a result of the aforegoing, Sapref hereby declares the occurrence of an event of force majeure, excusing Sapref from performing under the agreement.”
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