Sasol Sees Profit Falling Up to 11% on $1.3 Billion of Charges

(Bloomberg) -- Sasol Ltd. said full-year profit probably fell as the world’s biggest producer of fuel from coal takes a 16 billion-rand ($1.2 billion) depreciation charge and accounts for expenses on share-based payments.

Core headline earnings per share probably declined 1 percent to 11 percent in the year ended June 30 from the 38.47 rand reported 12 months earlier, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement Friday. Profit was also hit by 1.5 billion rand of employee share-based payment expenses, it said.

The stronger rand “resulted in a much lower operating profit and earnings per share for the financial year,” the company said. Sasol benefits when the rand is weaker because most of its products are sold in dollars, while its costs are mainly in the South African currency.

Brent crude, to which Sasol’s revenue is linked, rose 31 percent in the year to June and are at $72.22 a barrel.

Sasol, which built its business making fuel from coal to shield apartheid-era South Africa from sanctions, is transforming itself, with the start-up of an $11 billion ethylene plant in Louisiana completing the company’s conversion into a global chemicals player.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ana Monteiro in Johannesburg at amonteiro4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Alastair Reed

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