Page 20 - SAPREF 50 year

operators and the local lads delighted in teaching him all the most offensive local language, claiming that the locals wouldn’t understand him if he didn’t use it! The Managing Director at that time was Dr GG Rose, an English expatriate, but in later years one of the trainees was appointed to that position.
“I was living at Botha’s Hill in 1963 and from that distance we could see the glow in the sky whenever the refinery was going through a ‘start up’ and the flare was larger than usual. We all
ate in the refectory at lunch time but it was frequently invaded by a local group of monkeys. They would try to grab something from your
plate and then run off. I remember when one
of the men shooed a monkey from my table and the beast turned round and bit ME, not the man! When Dr Rose’s secretary left in 1965, I took over that job for a few months until Herb Humphreys had to return to Shell in Durban and wanted me to join him there.”
The first oil tanker for SAPREF, mv Nordic Heron, arrived in Durban harbour on 2 August 1963 with a cargo of 39 000 tons of crude oil from the Persian Gulf. Three other tankers arrived soon afterwards.
One of the operators who discharged that tanker was Dieter Weidenbruck. He was to work for SAPREF for 24 years. He remembers how “when SAPREF was announced, about ten of us took the opportunity to receive training in the lab and elsewhere to enable us to discharge ships.
“Everything was more manual. I remember the ‘midnight dip’ when we used to have to climb the tank steps just before midnight to dip the tanks — it was quite a procedure, especially in the howling wind or driving rain. Today, of course, you just push a button and get a read-out.
“I remember getting a tremendous shock
Guests inside a marquee. This photograph is dated 4 November 1960.
SAPREF: FUELLING SA FOR 50 YEARS
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Pipebridge carrying lines over the Umlaas canal to Island View.
The office complex, 30 July 1962.
Clearing the dune vegetation, 4 November 1960, with the SAPREF site in the background.