Technology enhancements contributed significantly towards improving Oryx GTL’s performance and we are carrying out studies to further enhance  performance and to increase capacity. Innovating for sustainability 65 annual review 2010 • operating reviews •  sasol technology continued As part of our commitment to gender  diversity, we are involved in various  programmes to encourage young women  to learn more about the fi elds of  engineering and science. We facilitate  access to mentors from various fi elds,  endeavouring to inspire, inform and  encourage these young people to explore  the exciting opportunities available. In recognition of Sasol Technology’s  commitment to innovation, we are  pleased to report that we were runners  up at the prestigious 2010 Franz Edelman  Award for Achievement in Operations  Research and Management Sciences.  Sasol Technology’s stochastic simulation  modelling design was pitted against fi ve  other international Edelman fi nalists for  the title. Other awards received in the  year were the outstanding achievement  award from the Council of the Fossil Fuel  Foundation for our fi xed-bed gasifi cation  (Sasol® FBDB™) research as well as the  Southern African Bitumen Association  Award for Outstanding Achievement in  Bituminous Product Technology for 2009. As part of the group-wide effort to reduce  costs, in 2010 we advanced work to  source less expensive capital equipment  and broaden our supply base. In what we  call global sourcing, we procured  equipment from China and India. This is  proving to be cost effective, and we  expect to develop this further in future. In 2010, we again demonstrated fi rst  quintile performance with the  execution of the project to install and  start-up new gas turbines at Secunda  (see Sasol Synfuels report on page 38).  We are also well on our way to  meeting aggressive targets for the  execution and start-up of projects in  Secunda involving the tenth Sasol  Advanced Synthol reactor, the 16th  oxygen train and the 17th gas  reformer. our initiative to improve our  performance in terms of the early  engineering and planning work on  projects (known as ‘front-end loading’),  as well as project execution, with an  internal programme called Back to  Basics. Through this initiative, we aim to  achieve a first quintile ranking among  our industry peers for all projects under  our control, in the next few years. Technological innovation is at the heart  of Sasol’s business and the group’s success  is closely linked to the expertise of our  engineers and scientists. As outlined by  Sasol Solvents on page 53, the group  continued work to develop a new ethylene  tetramerisation technology to convert  ethylene into 1-octene through an  innovative chemical process. We  completed the basic design activities for  a commercial facility at Sasol Olefi ns &  Surfactants’ site in Louisiana, USA and  await a board decision on whether to  proceed with this fi rst-of-a-kind  commercial-scale facility.  Striving to maintain the pace of  innovation, we continue to work with  universities to further bolster our research  and development. By year-end we had  signed a total of nine research framework  agreements with South African tertiary  institutions. We are contributing  R25 million a year over ten years to  build research capacity in science and  engineering, and to promote the  development of young academics.  This is a contribution not only to the  future of Sasol, but also to our industry  and country. We also have access to  international research and development  resources through our research facilities at  the University of St Andrews in the UK  and Twente University in The Netherlands.