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| Acknowledgements |
| Such were the vagaries, absurdities and derelictions of England’s education system in the middle of the last century that I
left school with no knowledge whatsoever of physics and chemistry. My ignorance was in no way diminished until I set
about researching this book, a task for which I was singularly ill-equipped, yet felt drawn to as if supernaturally guided. |
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| My gratitude towards the dozens of Sasol scientists, engineers, miners and plant managers and operators whom I
consulted is therefore boundless. I shall not name them - they know who they are and, as individuals, shun the spotlight -
but merely record that not one of them showed me anything but kindness and patience when explaining the fundamentals
of what they had been up to over the years. There is, however, one person whom I must name because I turned to him
often: John Marriott, Sasol’s official spokesman on technical matters. He never failed to provide a clear and simple
explanation of technical challenges Sasol had once faced, and of how it had met them. |
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| Reading books and technical papers was also an important aspect of my research, and thanks must therefore go to Sasol’s
head librarian in Johannesburg, Christine Pretorius, and her colleagues. They never hesitated to use their deep knowledge
of what is a complex group of companies and the impressive technical resources at their command to suggest and provide
documents that would give me some understanding of this or that matter before I set out on my interviewing. Books that
were not available in Sasol’s own libraries, yet seemed likely to aid my broader knowledge and understanding of science
and technology, were quickly obtained from other libraries throughout South Africa. |
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| Finally, I must remark on the quite extraordinary friendliness of all those whom I encountered at Sasol. It can only
be explained, I reckon, by their feeling happy and fulfilled in their jobs. It certainly made my time with them
unusually pleasant. |
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| John Collings |
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| Peer appreciation |
| Over the years Sasol has received dozens of awards from various South African and International
professional bodies for its achievements in the fields of geology and mine planning, process design
and innovation, project engineering and management; and chemicals research and innovation. |
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| In May 2001, for example, its success over the decades in advancing commercial Fischer-Tropsch
technology, unlocking new opportunities in the field of chemicals and chemical by-products and
helping to promote science and technology through Sasol SciFest and other initiatives was recognised
with the 2000 National Science and Technology Forum’s corporate award for outstanding
contribution in the fields of science, technology and engineering. |
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| The South African Institute of Chemical Engineering has recognised Sasol’s innovative work on
several occasions - for co-developing with Linde a unique azeotropic distillation process for removing
oxygenates from a C8 broad cut; for producing acrylamide in a catalytic distillation column, and
project managing a distillation tower featuring the world’s largest partitioned column with trays; and
for its low-steam-to-carbon reformer project. |
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| The South African Institute of Mechanical Engineering, too, in 1999 formally recognised Sasol’s success
in efficiently replacing replacing Synthol reactors with new-generation Sasol Advanced Synthol (SAS)
reactors at Secunda. Earlier in the 1990s, the National Productivity Institute had given Sasol Technology
a silver award for the work it had done for Sasol Chemical Industries in Sasolburg in the areas of business
development, conceptual engineering, project implementation and plant support services. |
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| Nor has recognition of Sasol’s achievements come only from South African organisations. The
worldwide Project Management Institution gave Sasol Technology its International Project Management
Award in 1991 for fast-track construction of the polypropylene plant at Secunda in 1990/91. In 1995
America’s Council on Alternate Fuels honoured Sasol with its Walter Flowers Achievement Award for its
pioneering work in developing and commercialising coal-conversion technologies. |
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