Global \u200ccommodities trader Trafigura is among three companies vying for a 36.36% stake in South African petrochemical company Sasol\u2019s Natref refinery, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The minority shareholding in the 108,500 barrels \u200bper day plant, South Africa’s only inland crude oil refinery, is up for \u200bsale after British-based Prax Group, which bought the stake from TotalEnergies\u00a0for \u2060an undisclosed sum two years ago, went into\u00a0administration\u00a0in 2025.<\/p>\n
South Africa’s fuels market is among \u200bthe largest in Africa and analysts expect it to keep growing for the foreseeable future, \u200bin contrast to regions such as Europe where a shift to greener energy is slowing oil demand.<\/p>\n
The process to acquire the stake is an open one, and Trafigura is not in exclusive talks on the \u200basset, the sources said.<\/p>\n
Both declined to be identified as they are not authorised to \u200bspeak publicly.<\/p>\n
SASOL HOLDS MAJORITY INTEREST<\/strong><\/p>\n Operator Sasol holds Natref’s remaining majority interest and has right of first refusal, Sasol\u2019s \u200cCEO \u2060Simon Baloyi said during an interview in\u00a0February\u00a0with Reuters.<\/p>\n Prax did not respond to a request for comment, while Sasol declined further comment.<\/p>\n One of the two sources said that, apart from Trafigura, two Black-owned South African energy companies were also competing in the process and may \u200bat a later stage \u200bbe backed by a \u2060western energy partner.<\/p>\n Since the end of white minority apartheid rule in 1994, South Africa has pursued a state-backed policy of Black Economic \u200bEmpowerment to open up sectors of the economy from which its \u200bBlack majority was \u2060previously excluded.<\/p>\n The source declined to identify them due to the sensitivity of the ongoing bids and the potential impact on their respective positions.<\/p>\n In South Africa, Trafigura competes with rivals, such as \u2060Vitol and \u200bGlencore. Last month Trafigura also signed a $1 billion\u00a0pre-payment\u00a0deal \u200bwith Gabon to receive crude deliveries over seven years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Global \u200ccommodities trader Trafigura is among three companies vying for a 36.36% stake in South African petrochemical company Sasol\u2019s Natref refinery, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The minority shareholding in the 108,500 barrels \u200bper day plant, South Africa’s only inland crude oil refinery, is up for \u200bsale after British-based Prax Group, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2831,2362,30],"tags":[122,5124],"class_list":["post-20782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-featured","category-southern-africa","tag-south-africa","tag-trafigura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20784,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782\/revisions\/20784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}