EMEKA OKOROANYAWU
The Board of Chevron South Africa has approved the sale of its downstream assets for a total of $1 billion to a firm controlled by Glencore.
Chevron SA’s last standing downstream assets include those in South Africa and Botswana- a 110,000 barrels per day refinery, a lubricants plant, 820 petrol stations, and oil storage facilities.
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However, the international oil company still holds firm its upstream and midstream presence- to soon take over Anadarko with a 26.5 per cent share in Area 1 offshore Mozambique, with estimated 75Trillion cubic feet of gas to be developed through LNG projects.
In March 2018, Competition Tribunal had approved the acquisition of Chevron SA by Sinopec. However, Glencore outsmarted Sinopec when it gave a $1 billion loan to Chevron’s SA partner, Off The Shelf Investments to exercise its right of first refusal of the deal.
Off The Shelf then acquired Chevron SA and renamed it Astron Energy with the $1Billion loan from Glencore.
The controlling stake was later transferred to Glencore by the Black Economic Empowerment, BEE.
Off The Shelf will retain its minority shareholding of 23% in Astron, which would later increase to 30%.
