Several flights have been diverted away from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to refuel at other locations as the country’s biggest airport faces a fuel supply crisis.
This follows a fire at the National Petroleum Refiners of South Africa (Natref) refinery on 4 January 2025, which severely impacted the production and supply of jet fuels.
Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has thus far confirmed that it has been able to secure enough supply for OR Tambo for January but is still working on plans to acquire sufficient reserves for February.
The airport currently has 27.1 million litres of jet fuel on hand and uses about 3.6 million litres a day which, meaning the remaining stock is expected to run out on 2 February 2025.
Meanwhile, Natref only anticipates restarting production on 27 February.
ACSA notes that certain airlines have raised concerns that their suppliers are restricting them and are not able to secure enough fuel to get them to their next destinations, forcing them to make alternative plans such as stopping at other airports for refueling.
“The distribution of fuel remains at the discretion of airlines and fuel suppliers subject to their respective commercial contracts,” said ACSA.
“Airlines and suppliers are exploring alternative measures, such as tankering (refuelling at other Airports), to manage fuel needs.”
The proposed solutions for February, thus far, include:
- Engaging all stakeholders to deal with the shortage caused by the Natref fire and build fuel reserves
- Requested Transnet to prioritise the movement of fuel stock from Durban to Gauteng once imported volumes arrive
- Requested fuel industry to build up more stocks at King Shaka International Airport which has higher fuel capacity than its daily consumption
ACSA has also encouraged fuel suppliers to build fuel reserves – the additional fuel carried by aircraft beyond the planned requirements for a flight – which serves as a critical safety buffer for unforeseen circumstances such as delays, diversions, or unexpected changes in flight conditions.
The situation is dire
Aviation expert Guy Leitch in an SABC News interview has labeled OR Tambo’s situation as “dire.”
“The situation is dire and it’s getting worse I’m afraid,” said Leitch.
He noted that the jet fuel supply issue is a recurring one that the relevant authorities have failed to take responsibility for, referencing the 2022 floods that washed away railway lines in KwaZulu-Natal leaving OR Tambo short of fuel at the time.
As recently as December 2024, OR Tambo experienced a problem with fuel security once again when a valve broke and rendered some aircraft unable to refuel.
“There’s just no backup system at all for OR Tambo and that’s placing the entire airline industry in jeopardy,” said Leitch.
“What it’s doing is it’s making it less and less attractive for airlines to fly into Johannesburg and that’s obviously really bad news for the Johannesburg economy and the whole South African economy.”
Leitch said the fact of the matter is that authorities have known of the inadequacies of OR Tambo’s storage facilities for over a decade but have yet to take any decisive action.
“The airline industry needs to be both resilient and flexible to deal with these failures and, let me just point out, ACSA is just one of the weak links in the entire chain that makes airlines fly,” said Leitch.
“The other big problem we’ve been seeing is with ATNS, that’s Air Traffic Navigation Services, who failed to maintain or survey the procedures that the airlines need to operate in out of airports.”
This has likewise caused many delayed and cancelled flights particularly out of the George and East London airports.
“Again, it’s just part and parcel of the failure of these government agencies or parastatals to provide a reliable service to the airlines,” said Leitch.
The shortcomings of these entities have forced carriers to increasingly adopt workarounds.
With the latest fuel supply problem, aircraft are forced to carry additional fuel into OR Tambo which costs the airlines dearly so that they can be certain that they’ll be able to fly to other Southern Hemisphere destinations should they be unable to refuel.
Major carriers such as Swiss Air and Lufthansa have already resorted to landing in Namibia to refuel.
Leitch said that he’s also been informed that there are alleged fuel quality concerns at the Cape Town International Airport, meaning planes that fly the incredibly busy Joburg-to-Cape Town route can’t adequately refuel once they reach their destination.
“The problem is just getting worse and worse,” said Leitch.
He mentioned that the Sasol refinery in Secunda also has a direct pipeline to OR Tambo supplying between 25-30% of the airport’s needs.
South Africa furthermore relies on imports from Maputo, Mozambique, however, this resource is currently unavailable, said Leitch.
“So we’re having to either rail fuel in from Durban or put a plug in and clean up the normal fuel pipeline for aviation fuel,” he said.
“All of these are big problems and the fact that there’s only 10 days reserve means that the airline industry is not going to be able to get through to the end of February which is when Natref had promised to have the refinery back online.”
He highlighted that the key issue remains that airlines are reliant on a single source of supply.
“At the moment, ACSA just hasn’t got its head around the issues of not being [reliant] on a single source of supply, whether it’s a single fuel manifold to distribute fuel at OR Tambo or whether it’s having sufficient reserves in terms of tank capacity or having alternative supply lines, these are all investments that need to be made that ACSA had just not actually got to grips with,” said Leitch.
“It’s part of the broader de-industrialization and decline of South Africa that we are not paying attention to make the necessary investment in infrastructure that key transport nodes and links actually need.”
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