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Sasol Limited (SSL)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Tue, Sep 20, 2011

$13.59

+3.78%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Sasol’s Results Announcement for 2011. Just before we get started in the interest of safety, I'd like to point out the doors at the rear of the auditorium. In a case of emergency, we’d ask you to exit through those doors in orderly fashion. From where Sasol representatives will further assist you to evacuate the building. Your presenters for today is Chief Executive Officer, David Constable; and our Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Christine Ramon. Also on the panel for Q&A later on, two familiar faces, our Senior Group Executive, Giullean Strauss and Andre De Ruyter. Just before we get started, I would like to point your attention to our forward-looking statements. If you can just take a moment to familiarize yourself with that, it's also in your packs. And with that, I’d like to hand over to David. Thank you.

David E. Constable

Management

Thank you, Karris, appreciate it. Hello, everyone, welcome. Great to be here in Johannesburg, and here, at Sasol here with all of you today. As I said this morning, it was also good to see the Springboks conserving their energy yesterday. You don’t want to peak too early in such a big tournament, but that was a nerve-racking second half that I watched yesterday, but congratulations to the Boks on their win against Wales, and all the best to them as they drive to defend their World Cup Championship in New Zealand. Also congratulations to the Orlando Pirates. They won the MTN8 soccer championship this weekend, and condolences to Kaizer Chiefs stands out there. Still trying to figure out which of those two teams I'll be cheering for, so, I'll take any advice on that. And then finally, Sasol sponsored Women’s national soccer team, Banyana Banyana tied with Ethiopia yesterday, and they previously beat them 3-0, so they'll be going through to the Olympics, which is very good news for Sasol and for the team as well. I've known Sasol since the early days of my career, and I've always had an extremely positive view in admiration of the Company. Now, seeing it from the inside, I can tell you, I’ve not been disappointed, the professionalism, the talented people, the technology leadership position we enjoy, and the strong can-do attitude of the team has made a great impression on me. Sasol’s values also resonate with those I’ve lived by throughout my career, and so I’m very excited to be a part of the Sasol family. Before getting started, I'd like to first acknowledge every single Sasol employee at each of our facilities and offices, all the management teams, the Group executives and my predecessor Pat Davies for the outstanding performance…

Kandimathie Christine Ramon

Management

Thanks, David. Good afternoon, everyone. It’s certainly my pleasure to take you through a great set of results that we’ve delivered for this year. But before I get into that detail, I’d like to make the following three points. Firstly, we’ve delivered on our operational and cost control targets. As for the year, we’ve significantly enhanced profitability and ensured sustainable performance. Second, our strong financial performance is underpinned by our strong cash flow, we are now better placed to deal with the potential global recession, global economic position should if materialize, as well as fund our abundant growth opportunities. And thirdly, our strong final dividend takes the total dividend to ZAR13 per share beating market expectation and equaling, the dividend declared in 2008, which was a year of record high earnings. This certainly confirms our commitment to deliver superior returns to shareholders through increased dividends and through capital investments that deliver long-term value and growth. In setting the economic scene for the past year, we note that the first three quarters of the past financial year saw very favorable global economic condition, and that was supported by continued resilience and improved activity in emerging economies and growing confidence in developed economies as the financial market showed signs of improvements. However, the last quarter showed signs of a marked slowdown as risk of a more fragile economic recovery in the U.S. and Europe became apparent. On average, we saw the crude oil price for the past year at 30% higher, and that contributed to the overall performance of our energy businesses and chemical markets certainly benefited from the favorable economic environment, and higher product prices and margins despite the high crude oil price. We saw the negative impact of an 8% stronger rand, however, that was offset by the higher commodity…

David E. Constable

Management

Thank you, Christine. Let me start my closing remarks with a familiar slide, We’ve all seen the Group's strategic agenda. We are building on a solid foundation and we have to some extent here mentioned progress that the Group has already made, not only on the Group imperatives, which you see on the left hand side of the screen, but also on our foundation and growth aspirations. The foundation businesses remain important as do the people and technology that drive these businesses. It's important to continue to improve on the development of our people, as well as on the operations and maintenance of our existing asset base. Sustainable growth is obviously important. In a moment, I'll give you an update on our major growth projects that support our strategic thrust into upstream, GTL, focused CTL, chemicals, and new energy. And when you talk about growth projects, our capital excellence Group imperatives is a key enabler here, it must ensure that capital is employed effectively from the translation of our strategy into a portfolio of successfully delivered project. Basically, this is all about ensuring that we achieve healthy and robust internal rates of returns on every project and it's something I'm quite passionate about, obviously, and intend to focus heavily on going forward. You will see two new Group imperatives on this slide; sales and marketing excellence is aligned with our Sasol shared value of customer focus. Many of our efforts in the past have focused on the buy and make part of the Sasol value chain. This new program is designed to improve our performance on the sell side, allowing us to improve customer relationships, customer value propositions, and Sasol margins. Extracting value across Sasol's integrated operations through planning and optimization is the other new and important Group imperative. Improved…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions)

Unidentified Analyst

Management

David E. Constable

Management

U.S. GTL I will start and Lean will support on this one, very exciting opportunity for us, next to our existing facility in Lake Charles Louisiana. It's a favorable state and a great opportunity for us to drive value through GTL, and associated in Innovative Chemicals. No partner, we would like to do this on our own, that's the first point. Gas feedstock right now, we are looking at both options. Hopefully, we will integrate upstream, that’s probably the preferred or at least partially the preferred route and SPI is helping us with that. Chemicals, I will turn it over to Lean and we want to talk a little bit about the associated chemicals and what those are. I know we don't want to get in too much detail, but Lean and Andre could probably help me with that.

Giullean Johann Strauss

Management

At this stage we only look at wax extraction, also some paraffin extraction, that’s [approximately] the two chemicals we are looking at in the United States.

David E. Constable

Management

Then onto LNG, and whether to ship it out of Canada to Japan versus the GTL production. We've got two camps on that, so we've got other companies looking at that as well, right around our reserves, though as a possibility it's very difficult to get that pipeline across the Canadian Rockies. That's a big, big cost. So, right now, we're very comfortable with what we're doing with those reserves and in driving that into GTL. This isn't to say that LNG is not in Sasol's future at some point, but for that specific opportunity in Canada, that's a, economically that's the way we're headed at GTL, and we think that makes more sense. On multiples and diversification unlocking shareholder value, we're always looking at that obviously for our shareholders, and at this point, we are comfortable we've done some consolidation in chemicals and getting our cost structure to where we need to be. Anyone on the panel like to add to that?

Kandimathie Christine Ramon

Management

The only comment I could make is that chemicals contributed quite significantly. And [day wise], if you look at the portfolio diversification, both geographically and from a portfolio perspective, it adds to resilience of Sasol. So, what I'd like to say is we're focusing on further extracting value from that business. I think you're referring to the non-integrated chemicals business, and we've no plans at this stage to unlock or unbundle chemicals.

David E. Constable

Management

Andre?

Andre Marinus De Ruyter

Management

Yeah, I just wanted to say, however I agree completely with you, and I would like to give you the opportunity to guide the market to rewrite.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I also enjoyed the letter (inaudible) David. Interesting reading.

David E. Constable

Management

Question? Caroline Learmonth – Absa Capital: Caroline Learmonth from Absa Capital. Can you comment, now that you're in place of CEO, is it business as usual or are you going to revisit strategy, revisit operations in any way, and over what timeframe? And then question number two, on China CTL, can you remind us how much has been spent from that project over the years in terms of pre-feasibility, feasibility? And do you have any indication roughly of how many man-hours would have been spent on that project? And are you going to be limiting that going forward? Obviously, you talked about India CTL, but just an indication of where priorities are on that part of the growth versus GTL? And then just on – an add-on question to the previous question, so on Olefins & Surfactants, if that is a continuing core part of operations, what sort of operating margins do you think are sustainable for that business in the longer term over the cycle? Thanks very much.

David E. Constable

Management

Andre Marinus De Ruyter

Management

Thanks, David. The O&S business historically performed at about negative operating margins, but on the whole between 3% and 5% operating margins. We feel reasonably confident that we will be able to maintain operating margins of between 7% and 11% throughout this cycle.

David E. Constable

Management

Lean, China CTL?

Giullean Johann Strauss

Management

The cost of the feasibility study was just over our share of the cost (inaudible) $20 million. The pre-feasibility study was not costly at all we’ve done it mostly out of South Africa. So, I think we’ll probably spend over the years in total between $130 million and $140 million in China. All of that has been chartered into the income statement, so there is no more cost coming through. Unfortunately, I don’t know the man hours, I could probably do calculation, but I guess I’ll be off-target, so can I come back to you on that one. We, at the top of the cycle, probably have about 30 South African expatriates in the office, but also we have supporting offices all over the world. So, I will have to come back to you with the man hour calculation.

David E. Constable

Management

Okay and then a final one about the business as usual and strategy, transitions there trying to capitalize on opportunities and challenges and take stock and look at some low-hanging fruits, some early wins, so that’s what we’re doing. But the team and I have discussed it as you see with these results; this ship is going in a pretty good direction. So, we’re coming together as a team to get it going in a better direction by optimizing cost and operational performance, and all the things you heard about under our top priorities. So that’s what we’re doing right now. So it’s not a major shift because the strategy we’re working off right now is working. The GTL strategy was started back in the late 90s and early 2000s when the company took their GTL technology to the market to take on the stranded gas issue, all that stranded gas in the Middle East. It was a great opportunity to demonstrate that Sasol's GTL technology could play a part and that's played very well for us, the international growth, the low cost of standard gas that makes those projects very viable and of great returns. So that's – and then this gets turbocharged. This strategy is getting turbocharged with all the low-cost shale gas. So it's the – the strategy we're working of right now is playing out very nicely, it will take us into the next decade obviously, but we do need to come together as a team and look at scenario planning on what's next, right? What's post-GTL? What Sasol's going to look like so that it's a viable and growing company well actually we retired here, so that's also on the book sort of early next to take a look at a longer term scenario planning analysis about, which way transportation and mobility is headed and what the world's going to do with CO2 and what they decided COP17 here in Durban around Kyoto 2, all these things they are going to play a part in the scenario as we look at as we again, happy with our current strategic agenda for a several more years, but we're going to look at a middle state and a long-term state that keeps the company very healthy well into the future. Thank you.

Nick Damon - KB Securities

Management

Can I just give you the questions one by one?

David E. Constable

Management

Your name?

Nick Damon - KB Securities

Management

My name is [Nick Damon] from KB Securities. Just, right next door, Mozambique, there is a very large of coal deposit at Moatize and the early announcements that have come out them, that's attracted the attention of a variety of big major companies, and one of them is Vale, and Vale is talking about CTL plant. Are you involved, and if not, why not?

David E. Constable

Management

Certainly, we all know Vale, very huge organization and I have not heard from them specifically. We're getting lots of calls on GTL and our CTL technology. I know in Poland has been looking at our technology, but from Vale and Mozambique's perspective, I'd have to see if Lean's been talking to them.

Giullean Johann Strauss

Management

The short answer is we're not involved, but I think speaking to the market some time ago that we’re limiting our CTL projects to China and India and we're accelerating GTL. So we're not involved in Mozambique.

Nick Damon - KB Securities

Management

Okay. The next question is really about these liquid hydrocarbons you found in Mozambique. What are liquid hydrocarbons? Is that what I call oil?

David E. Constable

Management

Lean?

Giullean Johann Strauss

Management

It's a good description, it's a light product.

Nick Damon - KB Securities

Management

The follow-on question is, how much of that oil, if any, is embedded in the resources that you published?

Giullean Johann Strauss

Management

Nothing of those resources has been included as yet because we still have a lot of work to do to firm up those resources.

Nick Damon - KB Securities

Management

Last question, the question is about the capacity of Synfuels. So, we now have the baseline of 7.3 million and we're working to 3% improvement on the 7.3 million and there has been a temporary delay. Now, the emphasis that's been placed in this presentation is the accident that happened down there and that's why we only gained 7.2 million to 7.3 million for this year, which is a bit lower than what you had previously guided. Was that accident so severe or are we looking at other impacts and other effects on Synfuels, which you’re not making quite so explicitly clear? It had numerous downgrades in a relatively short period of time on the capacity or production and forecasts?

David E. Constable

Management

Yeah, I can tell you that we have guided downwards to 7.2 million to 7.3 million baseline. As Christine said, the industrial action, it took out three weeks during July, where we were working with the trade unions to get everyone back to work, and it did affect production. It was a larger strike than normal and it affected people operating the facility through one of the unions that we work with. The process incident on August 24 was in the west plant in the gasifier section, and it's a unique situation. It's not systemic in the plant whatsoever. So, it’s a once-off issue that’s been taken care of. We're working hard to bring it back online with a lot of steel and pipe and utilities that need to be put back in place, but the plant is coming back nicely, but it’s going to take a bit more time to get those last couple of gasifiers back online. So that’s why we're having the guidance down to 7.2 million tons to 7.3 million tons, there's no other issues. I think we’re comfortable that the guidance to get to 3% by the end of second half 2013 is a good statement. Our projects are coming along out there, and so that’s where we are right now.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

All right, shall I take one from the floor and let me take one from the conference director. Jarrett Geldenhuys – Deutsche Bank: Hello, it's Jarrett Geldenhuys from Deutsche Securities. Just three quick questions, the first one is on sustainability or sustainable CapEx. It looks like in 2013, it takes quite a big jump, I don't know if you can just check through that? And then second of all, you mentioned several GTL opportunities, potentially if you could just give us an indication of what percentages of those sits in North America and I suppose the rest is probably somewhere in Central Asia, can you just give us some kind of a breakdown of that? And then thirdly, if I understand the accounts correctly, it looks like there is a small provision raised against catalyst performance at Oryx. I don’t know if you can comment about that, or maybe I just misread that completely?

David E. Constable

Management

Okay. Thanks. Go ahead, Christine.

Kandimathie Christine Ramon

Management

Yeah, on CapEx. The sustained CapEx comes out at for 2013 about ZAR7.3 billion and what that relates to primarily are the replacement mines for Impumelelo and Shondoni. And then we’ve certainly got some other environmental CapEx and one has to also bear in mind that shutdown CapEx was also included in that.

David E. Constable

Management

On GTL opportunities I mentioned that statement within the, that they are in the idea and concept stage, so I would rather not, I think want to go there to signal anything to any competition. So I think we will just let you know that as you see from the graph, shale gas is large and growing, and that we have a lot of opportunities to take a look at and priorities. On catalyst performance at Oryx, Lean.

Giullean Johann Strauss

Management

There is no additional provision. There have been provisions that we've made since startup, but in terms of certain transactions we have done with them, so there is nothing that we have added that's new.

David E. Constable

Management

Lets get back to conference operator and then we will get back to our (inaudible)

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Campbell Parry from Investec Securities. Please go ahead with your question. Campbell Parry – Investec Securities: Thanks very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Just David, well in your time there as the new CEO, what has impressed you most about the businesses as you've stood back from a strategic level and had a look at it? And then when you’ve taken a look at the programs underway or in prefeasibility, feasibility study or even at the idea phase, when you look at that list of projects, do you think that there is any way to accelerate any of them? One of the common criticisms of the business is that GTL is all wonderful, but could you perhaps kind of then very quickly over the next couple of years? It’s a bit of a silly remark, but it certainly is something that you’ve spoken about around the world quite frequently. So, when you take a look at projects like U.S. GTL and anywhere in Europe, perhaps anywhere in Australia, and when you talk about some of the shale gas programs, is there any way of getting in there more aggressively and quicker than has normally been the case with Sasol?

David E. Constable

Management

Great, thanks, Campbell. So, let me just replay that for you. What have I been most impressed with at the Company and then how do we think we can get through FID faster, is that what I heard? Campbell Parry – Investec Securities: Correct, yeah.

David E. Constable

Management

Well, it’s a long list, as far as what I’ve been impressed with and certainly, the first thing is the people and all the hard work in the company that has got us to this point. And I think this focus on going after the right opportunities and leveraging our technologies is really something to be proud of and I just think that the company has done a great job of that and positioned us so well. Like I said earlier, our current strategic agenda has us going in a very good direction and we’ve got the right platform in place to really take off on this opportunity we have in front of us. If you think about that Canadian acquisitions, I mean that was a great, great move strategically and it’s going to change the whole face of the company for the better. So, just the way, all the employees and the management teams are focused on growing the company, both domestically and internationally is something that has been great to see, and start to be a part of for me. On getting to the final investment decisions sooner, also what I have been impressed with is the gated process that the company uses. It is best-in-class. The gated process we used to move from idea phase to prefeasibility to feasibility, and onto FEED and implementation on the EPC and startup and commissioning of our projects, and so that the magnitude of these megaprojects we're talking about, you do need that type of a gate process in place to ensure that your business development and implementation is done correctly. Clearly, we have some great opportunities in front of us that we'd all like to move along a little faster, but if you do that and you accelerate too quickly, you can have a real train wreck on the backend, whether it's an estimate that hasn't been done with the right scope or some issues with not getting all the commercial arrangements set up properly at the outset. So, we are focused on moving them along as quickly as possible. Hopefully, you've seen today that we've taken some off the list, and we're moving some along quite nicely, and we are very excited about Uzbekistan and Lake Charles as well as others in the pipeline. So, that's where we're at on pipeline. Thanks Campbell.

Campbell Parry - Investec Securities

Analyst

David, just on Uzbekistan, you mentioned, commercial conditions necessary to move that into FID stage. Could you be more specific on those conditions?

David E. Constable

Management

Yeah, we’re very positive on that. I'm actually going into the country on the 19th to meet with the President and along with our partner from Petronas and things look very positive. We do have most of our documents in place. It's probably we've heard best-in-class and these are from third parties now, best-in-class in what we've done as far as getting all of our agreements in place. There are just a few, I would say, minor commercial conditions that we just need to make sure that we're all buttoned up and then hopefully, we can make a positive decision in the very near-term.

Campbell Parry - Investec Securities

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Alex? Alex Comer – JPMorgan: Yeah, I’m Alex Comer from JPMorgan. Couple of questions, just on cost. It's far likely that your costs were up, cash costs were up 15% in the second half. Just wondered how confident you are on costing maintained within inflation next year? Also, just on last year a lot was said with regard to voluntary redundancy program and taking people out, if I just look at the breakdown, it looks to me like you've taken about 200 out of energy and about 200 out of chemicals and added close to a 1,000 to other, I think you said this one way, but what do those people in other actually do, what are you going to get out of that extra thousand people? On the GTL projects, I just wonder whether or not you could give an indication of what you think the CapEx cost difference would be in a GTL plant in Western Canada and one in Louisiana and David, maybe your background in that part of the business you may be able to just tell typically what we should you use as a discount? And then in terms of the stock, you mentioned that it was both the value stock and the growth stock and it clearly, I think you all agree it's not being valued as a growth stock and yeah, the history is being one of disappointment on volumes and yet when you look at the reserves in place in Canada, the stock should have materially higher volume growth and we would expect materially higher valuation with the like. What are you going to do to convince the market that this time, this is actually going to happen, given what's happened historically?

David E. Constable

Management

Okay. Let's talk about cost first, up 15% in the second half, Christine, can you talk about keeping us within inflation this year?

Kandimathie Christine Ramon

Management

Yes, I think that is our target, and it's certainly looking like we're on track to achieving that. I haven't done the half cost comparison, but I did make the point that really was ZAR1.1 billion worth of once-off cost in the current year. And so, I think that would have certainly contributed to the 15% that you're referring to up in the second half, part of it, but I am quite comfortable that with the initiatives that we've undertaken that we will actually achieve our targets for the full year.

David E. Constable

Management

Do you want to add on to that with the headcount, I know that we've been up till now because of growth as well…

Kandimathie Christine Ramon

Management

Yeah, the point that I made in the presentation is that in our international energy businesses in particular, our headcount numbers are actually up and that's certainly tied into investment for growth and certainly if you look at the other businesses the headcount numbers are down. So, I think when we also do the cost comparison, we look at it on a normalized basis, so we take after once-off related costs, which is safe.

David E. Constable

Management

I could understand on the Sasol New Energy, but it's just the extra size in other, so I'm somewhat surprised at that?

Kandimathie Christine Ramon

Management

I think certainly on the functional excellence side, we've moved, we've transferred people from the businesses into ship services, so that would have been the move, that's actually come through. But maybe we can get back to you with more detail offline, it's a bit difficult to answer the exact details.

David E. Constable

Management

GTL CapEx cost difference in Canada and the U.S., well, certainly there are some differences like Gulf Coast, Louisiana is open shop, productivity better and in Canada, you will be dealing with unions and you also have a slightly decreased productivity because of weather. So, I think that's all I need to say on that. There will be a difference, but we'll be looking at marginalization is critical to keep that as much as possible in the fab shops and moving that much of the plants into the location in either Alberta or British Columbia, keeping productivity up when you are inside a fab shop. So, yes, there is a difference in Canada, it will be slightly more expensive, definitely. On growth versus value stock, I think it's a great story. It's when you look at those curves up there, I think we should be valued for what we've been able to valued as a growth stock based on what we've been able to put in place and I believe we're going to deliver on that. We're going to start getting some of these projects over the goal line in North America and in Eastern Europe and construct them successfully and that's going to drive just like Oryx, GTL has drives to the major bottom-line growth through the medium term. So, I'm very positive and hopefully the markets will see that. Alex Comer – JPMorgan: Okay. Thanks.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

I think we've run out of time. Certainly, I know there's lot more questions, but we're already 15 minutes over our time. Please join us for a drink next door, and our management will be available, so, you'll have opportunity to ask further questions.

David E. Constable

Management

Thanks very much, everyone. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude the Sasol year-end financial result conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.