Assessing the Impact of

Abstract

This research assessed potential impacts of South African petroleum industry deregulation. Industry participants have called for changed regulation of the South African petroleum industry. The National Energy Forum task force was established to formulate recommendations concerning future petroleum industry regulation. Government subsequently released a white paper indicating a major shift towards deregulation. Deregulation and a twenty-five percent black economic empowerment (BEE) objective became the future envisaged policy. Government, oil majors, retail associations and retailer representatives were interviewed. Developments in three deregulated countries were analysed and evaluated, to determine the effects should full deregulation occur. A refined analytical framework was used. The results show that much must be achieved before implementation of full deregulation in South Africa. Government is particularly concerned about supply security, infrastructure requirements, transformation to twenty-five percent BEE and protection against massive unemployment resulting from rationalisation, caused by competitive price-cutting, of approximately 30% of the retail service stations