This article explores the history of South Africa's oil-from-coal project, Sasol, the petro-chemical company central to apartheid South Africa's response to oil sanctions. Contrary to popular perception, South African interest in synthetic fuel pre-dates anti-apartheid sanctions. Anglovaal, a private mining company, acquired rights to the German Fischer-Tropsch pro...

The workings of the anti-apartheid oil boycott have attracted little scholarly attention to date. Their symbolic importance and contribution to the significant escalation of financial cost for the Apartheid state has been noted, as has the role of Western states and multinational oil companies and Middle Eastern oil states in undermining the boycott. This article f...