South African fuel and chemicals giant Sasol Ltd. is stepping away from plans to invest in a new pipeline from northern Mozambique, for fear that it will end up saddled a stranded asset in a decarbonizing world.
Committing now to the 1,600-mile, $6-billion African Renaissance Pipeline would leave Sasol “tied to that for 30 or 40 years because that’s the nature of the investment,” CEO Fleetwood Grobler told Bloomberg. “Gas in the long term is also a fossil fuel and we said we want to get to net-zero.”
Sasol, South Africa’s second-biggest carbon polluter, is aiming to cut its emissions 30% by 2030, “largely through replacing a portion of the coal it uses to make synthetic fuel and chemicals, with natural gas,” Bloomberg says. TotalÉnergies had already suspended development of the pipeline due to what the news agency cites as an Islamist insurgency.
