Continued bitumen shortage puts infrastructure projects in question

South Africa is currently facing a bitumen supply shortage, which has had drastic implications on most road construction, infrastructure, and other maintenance projects over the past couple of months.

At the end of September last year, the entire country started experiencing asphalt or tar shortages. Bitumen is the major ingredient used to manufacture asphalt or tar. It is a by-product of the petrol refinery process. Due to high demand and planned and unplanned shutdowns of oil refineries in the last couple of months, the bitumen shortage has worsened. 

One thousand tons per day of bitumen are currently required by the road construction industry in South Africa. However, only 30 to 70 tons per day are being produced. In South Africa, 600,000 km of roads are un-surfaced and, in the long term, it is predicted that an average of four to six million tons per annum will be required.

SA's largest user of bitumen is the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral). The company was responsible for more than 16 000km of the country's strategic national roads, which accounted for 70% of bitumen used.

The situation is dire and is significantly affecting the engineering industry. It is not just big construction and asphalt companies that are being impacted but small companies too, which is having a ripple effect on other business sectors.

The last couple of weeks has seen numerous calls to the Ministers of Energy and Transport to intervene to secure a reliable and predictable supply of bitumen. It is important that urgent steps are taken to ensure that South Africa's future supply of bitumen is protected as it is a resource that is essential in preserving South Africa's economic growth path.

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