Rival bidder takes PetroSA to court over Gazprom-Equator tenders
Phezulu Natural Energy Resources is demanding that PetroSA disclose internal documents showing how and why it selected Russia’s Gazpro
Secret. That’s how PetroSA likes its offshore gas business to be.
However, a new court case threatens to crack open its two most controversial deals: the gas-to-liquids refinery deal with Russia’s Gazprombank and the gas finance-and-infrastructure deal with businessman Lawrence Mulaudzi.
Two weeks ago, Phezulu Natural Energy Resources, a rival bidder, filed a case asking the Cape Town High Court to set aside Mulaudzi’s deal. However, in a novel legal twist, Phezulu is also demanding access to the decision-making records of the Gazprombank tender, which – it alleges – was illegally split for Mulaudzi’s benefit.
It’s a complicated story, so let me explain:
In January last year, PetroSA – the state-owned oil and gas company – issued a flurry of tenders designed to kickstart the offshore gas industry:
RFP 0001/2023 would restart the mothballed gas-to-liquids refinery in Mossel Bay;
RFP 0003/2023 would drill gas wells off the southern coast, and
RFP 0004/2023 would source funding for the drilling programme.
Then PetroSA went quiet – until December, when amaBhungane reported that PetroSA was planning to award RFP 0001/2023, worth roughly R3.7-billion, to Gazprombank Africa, a local subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned gas giant.
The deal was controversial: Gazprombank had been selected after all 19 other bidders were eliminated for technical reasons. Dealing with a Russian entity, currently under Western sanctions, made it even riskier.
Read the full story here
By Susan Comrie for amaBhunganembank and scandal-plagued Equator Holdings for multibillion-rand gas deals.