South Africa's gas production to increase

Refineries in South Africa should be operating at over 95 per cent again by the third week in November.

According to the Times, liquid petroleum gas production will return to almost its entire capacity of 708,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) towards the end of the month.

The move will ease the petroleum gas shortage currently underway in the country which occurred following the closure of three of South Africa's six refineries, some of which were planned while others were not.

One of Engen Petroleum's refineries, which usually produces up to 125,000 bpd will remain closed until the end of the month following a fire and for routine maintenance at the plant, the 45,000 bpd produced by PetroSA will also be on hold for a few weeks as a result of a steam line failure.

In addition to that the 180,000 bpd SAPREF refinery has also had to close for repairs after a fault was discovered.

The remaining three refineries are currently meeting just 70 per cent of consumer demand within the country.