Sasol faces production headwinds, maintains financial guidance

Sasol Limited (JSE:SOL) reported challenges in its latest production and sales metrics for the nine months ended March 31, 2025. Coal quality issues at Secunda Operations (SO) and operational outages impacted production, leading to decreased fuels and South African chemicals sales volumes. To counter this, Sasol implemented a plan to replace own coal production with higher quality purchased coal, reducing own coal production by approximately 2mt. International Chemicals saw increased revenue driven by higher average prices, but sales volumes declined due to outages in America. The company expects Mining's production outlook has been revised downward to 28 - 30 mt, with an associated mining cost between ZAR650-ZAR670 per ton. Fuels sales volumes are expected to decrease by 1-3% lower than FY24. Despite these challenges, Sasol maintains its financial guidance for FY25, with cash fixed cost increases expected to remain below inflation and capital expenditure to be at the lower end of its guided range of ZAR28-ZAR30 billion.