The illegal refilling of LPG cylinders has become widespread and poses significant safety risks to SA consumers. Rogue refillers now control more than a quarter of the SA market, according to industry players. They are bypassing safety measures designed to prevent fires, explosions and fatalities.
The Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinder sitting beside a suburban braai, tucked into a retirement village kitchen or strapped into the back of a delivery vehicle looks harmless enough. But due to rampant illegal refilling, many of these cylinders are spending years circulating outside the formal gas system, bypassing inspections, pressure testing, and maintenance programmes designed to keep consumers safe.
In a worst-case scenario, the result can be catastrophic: a leaking cylinder releasing its highly flammable content; a fireball engulfing a backyard filling operation; or an explosion powerful enough to kill.
For Herman Coetzee*, a veteran investigator who has spent three decades tracking illegal LPG filling operations, the danger is not theoretical.
“You must see the photos. The clothes were burned off his body, his skin came off,” he says when describing an LPG incident at a cylinder-filling operation in Eikenhof.
It is one of many accidents that rarely make the national headlines but illustrate the risks posed by South Africa’s thriving illicit LPG market, which is estimated to now control more than a quarter of the national market. What began as a fringe activity involving a handful of operators has evolved into a sprawling parallel economy ranging from backyard filling operations and roadside traders to sophisticated commercial enterprises operating bulk storage facilities, fleets of trucks and extensive distribution networks, industry players told News24.
“When I started 30 years ago, there were maybe three guys doing ‘foreign’ filling, but now, it’s really gotten out of hand,” Coetzee says, adding that there are close to 100 illegal cylinder filling operations in Gauteng alone.
The rogue elements have grown alongside increased LPG uptake in South Africa, thanks in part to years of load shedding, rising electricity prices, and a transition towards cleaner cooking.
Some illegal filling businesses reportedly now have industrial-scale facilities that rival those of leading legitimate distributors, with tanks as large as 60 metric tonnes on site that’s double the capacity of the tanker which notoriously became stuck under a Boksburg bridge on Christmas Eve in 2024, leading to an explosion which killed more than 40 people.
The bigger illegal operators have adopted mafia-like tactics, leaving some retailers afraid to switch to legitimate suppliers in case of violent reprisal, industry sources say. It’s not uncommon, either, for trucks to be hijacked – with the cylinders being the main prize.
Meanwhile, some enforcement officers who try to clamp down on rogue operators, especially in smaller communities, have had their lives or those of their families threatened.
Breaking the chain
The LPG itself is either imported or purchased from Sasol’s Secunda facility, and can be easily and legally purchased by anyone with a wholesale licence. Rather, the illegal activity revolves around the cylinders.
Under South African law, only the owner of a cylinder, or an authorised party acting on the owner’s behalf, may refill it. In practice, however, cylinders belonging to major LPG brands frequently find their way into the hands of unauthorised operators who refill and resell them without permission.
Jeremie Tromp, CEO of Easigas, a leading LPG supplier and distributor in Southern Africa, says the cylinder owner is responsible for its maintenance. Under the formal system, cylinders are continuously circulated through a network of distributors and filling plants. Each time they return to the authorised filler, they are visually inspected, leak tested and periodically subjected to specialist revalidation procedures. Cylinders deemed unfit are either repaired or scrapped. “It’s our legal obligation to test it and to put it out of circulation if it’s not repairable,” says Tromp.
But illegal filling disrupts that entire chain and cylinders can remain in circulation long after they should have been withdrawn. “When that cylinders end up in the hands of the wrong people, they never inspect them,” Coetzee says. “They never check them. They don’t care about the maintenance. They just want the cylinder to put their gas in.”
The risks extend to how the cylinders are refilled, too. Tromp notes legitimate operators use calibrated industrial scales and multiple verification checks when filling. A cylinder cannot be filled to more than 85% of its volume, he says. Rising temperatures make LPG expand, hence the limit.
Overfilled cylinders leave insufficient room for expansion, increasing the risk that liquid LPG rather than vapour will escape through the valve. “Just a small quantity of liquid can take up a large space because it instantly evaporates and is extremely flammable.”
An untrained person may easily overfill a cylinder. Fortunately, from a safety perspective, it is more likely that rogues would underfill cylinders to increase profits. However, in some cases, they have been found to add other substances to increase the weight. Water is often added, with the vapour damaging appliances.
“We have even seen some people adding paraffin, because it will burn. But if it’s mixed with LPG, the flame that is coming out is much more unstable, and you have toxic emissions,” Tromp says.
Easy to recognise rogue refillers
Illegal refilling isn’t hard to spot. Legal operators typically work with one brand, which they are authorised to refill, and will carry cylinders belonging to that company (bar perhaps one or two empties they cannot refill but can return to the owners in question).
But when a truck carries a vast range of different coloured cylinders – which Coetzee calls a “smartie box” – it’s fairly obvious they are not legitimate distributors.
While one might assume LPG purchased from a branded forecourt would be legitimately filled, this is not necessarily the case as major fuel brands are not obliged to ensure compliance when it comes to the LPG cylinders sold from their sites.
And while consumers were advised to check whether the plastic seal on a cylinder matched the brand stamped on the cylinder itself, this is no longer much of a safeguard as illegal fillers are using counterfeit seals, although it does help that these are often generic and not branded with company logos.
Still, Tromp says the counterfeit seals have become sufficiently widespread that Easigas is now looking to introduce QR-coded seals that consumers can scan to verify authenticity.
Starting a legitimate LPG distribution business requires substantial investment. Operators must obtain compliant premises, secure the necessary approvals, and, crucially, acquire their own sizeable cylinder fleet, which costs tens, if not hundreds of millions.
“The biggest expense in an LPG business is the cylinders,” says Tromp. “If you remove all the investment that you need to do the business, you capture a massive margin.”
He warns that if the illicit sector continues expanding, it could threaten the viability of compliant operators. “If it reaches 50%, it will be very hard to bring back the sector, and legit players might not survive,” Tromp says.
Time bombs But enforcement has struggled to keep pace and is fragmented across municipalities, fire departments and the Department of Employment and Labour, which oversees the Pressure Equipment Regulations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Then there are the private investigations, which typically begin with test purchases where teams buy or exchange cylinders from suspected operators and document whether illegally filled branded cylinders are supplied.
The evidence is then used by the relevant gas distributor either in civil proceedings or, less frequently, criminal cases. Civil court orders restraining operators from filling or trading in branded cylinders have achieved some success. But these operations “pop up faster than we can investigate and try to close them down”, Coetzee says. Criminal enforcement has proven even more difficult, with a guilty plea often resulting in no more than a slap on the wrist.
According to Gadibolae Dihlabi, managing director and CEO of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association of South Africa (LPGSA), there are two pending, but critical policy developments that will assist. Firstly, proposed amendments to the Pressure Equipment Regulations, that will require that all LPG distributors, filling operations, and filling personnel must be formally registered.
This, she says, would help to establish a national database to empower consumers and regulators to verify compliant operators. Second is the finalisation of the Department of Mineral Resources and Petroleum’s Petroleum Products Bill, which is anticipated to enable licensing requirements for LPG filling plants and distribution operations.
This, Dihlabi says, would formalise the sector, making it easier to regulate and monitor compliance. LPGSA has meanwhile implemented a range of interventions, including a national consumer education and awareness campaign; inspector training and capacity building in collaboration with the Department of Employment and Labour; and targeted training programmes for municipal law enforcement agencies.
But Dihlabi says sustained and enhanced interventions are needed to effectively tackle increasingly sophisticated non-compliant operators. For now, many industry participants believe consumer awareness is the most effective way to combat the scourge.
This has led to an initiative by the Safe LPG Gas Distributors Network of South Africa, which aims to register legitimate operators so that consumers can access its database at safegasnetwork.co.za to find their closest legal distributor.
Coetzee, too, thinks consumer education is the key. “If we can get the public to stop buying from these people, that will automatically close them down.” He firmly believes most LPG consumers, if they were aware of the issue, would want to buy legitimate cylinders from legitimate companies, even if it means paying a bit more.
“Because, if not, you’re basically taking a time bomb into your home.”
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