CAPE TOWN, Sept 10 (Reuters) - South Africa's national oilcompany, PetroSA, expects its flagship Mossel Bay gas-to-liquid(GTL) refinery to run out of domestic supplies by the end ofnext year, a presentation to parliament showed on Tuesday.
"Reserves are close to depletion and are expected to run outby December 2020 and there is still no sustainabletechno-economic long-term solution for the gas-to-liquidrefinery," a presentation by the Central Energy Fund said.
Situated on the southern coast of South Africa, the MosselBay plant is one of the world's largest and is operated bystate-owned national oil and gas company PetroSA, a subsidiaryof the government's Central Energy Fund.
In February, PetroSA said they had reached out to French oilmajor Total following the discovery of a huge offshorefield containing gas condensate that could potentially be usedas feedstock to Mossel Bay.
The GTL refinery is currently operating well below itsnameplate capacity of 36,000 barrels per day – equivalent to45,000 barrels of crude oil per day - following a $1 billionoffshore drilling campaign that was halted due to poor resultsin finding replacement reserves.
"PetroSA is close to negative cashflows, increasing its costof doing business and unable to fund its long term plans," CEF'spresentation to lawmakers said.
Shell, BP, and Engen are among operators ofcrude oil refineries in Africa's most industrialised country,which depends on imports to meet rising demand for refinedpetroleum products.(Reporting by Wendell Roelf, editing by Louise Heavens)
