SASOL 2 and 3 Attack by MK Special Ops Dolphin Unit
In the early part of the morning of 28 November 1985, at around 01:00, the SASOL 2 and 3 oil-from-coal complex in Secunda, in the eastern Transvaal, was hit by six 122-mm rockets fired from Grad-P artillery pieces. According to a deceptive police statement, the rockets fired against the Sasol 2 and 3 refineries missed their target, as they landed on the ground of the complex and did not damage the installations themselves.
Indeed, some observers expressed scepticism about the official claims that no damage had been caused to the complex. They noted that the adjoining plants consisted of a mass of tanks and exposed pipes, which would be vulnerable to damage from six 122-mm rockets, even if these were poorly aimed. This operation became a third guerrilla attack on the vital Sasol plants, which supplied about 42 percent of South Africa’s annual consumption of 120 million barrels of oil.
At that time, South Africa had vast coal reserves but no oil and could not buy oil on the open market because oil-producing nations refused to deal with the white-minority government. The first refinery attack was in June 1980, when limpet mines caused damage estimated at $6 million at Sasol 1, at Sasolburg about 100 miles south of Johannesburg. Two weeks later, the bigger Sasol 2 and 3 plants at Secunda were attacked. Official statements at the time said damage was minimal, but later it was estimated at more than $1.5 million. Anothe
