Sasol suffers

Sasol took some pain in the last six months of 2025, taking a major knock to its earnings and swinging to a loss, despite slightly higher turnover.

This was largely due to a challenging external environment, including lower oil and chemicals prices, compounded by a stronger rand against the US dollar.

Sasol is one of South Africa’s largest employers and arguably one of the country’s most important companies, as the nation’s largest provider of synthetic fuels and basic chemicals.

However, it has faced operational difficulties and declining prices for its products over the past few years.

On Monday, 23 February, Sasol released its results for the six months ended 31 December 2025, marking the first half of its 2026 financial year.

These results showed a modest 0.23% increase in turnover to R122.39 billion, driven largely by Sasol’s Chemicals Eurasia and Energy segments.

However, this growth was not enough to boost Sasol’s bottom line, with the company swinging to a total comprehensive loss of R763 million, compared to an over R4.77 billion profit in the comparable half-year.

Sasol’s basic earnings per share declined to R0.38 per share, a nearly 95% decrease from the first half of its 2025 financial year.

The company’s EBIT also declined by 52% to R4.6 billion, with the company citing various non-cash adjustments that put pressure on earnings, including –

• Its Secunda liquid fuels refinery cash generating unit (CGU) remained fully impaired in the half-year. In line with this, the full amount of costs capitalised during the current period of R3 billion has been impaired.
• Sasol recognised an impairment of R3.9 billion on its Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) development in Mozambique. 
• The company saw higher unrealised gains of R4.4 billion on the valuation of Sasol’s financial instruments and derivative contracts, which were partially offset by higher unrealised translation losses of R3.9 billion on the translation of monetary assets and liabilities.

Sasol once again did not declare a dividend for this half-year, as its net debt exceeded the $3 billion cap stipulated in its dividend policy.