COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

BHP says its bid for Anglo American is ‘not a reflection on SA



BHP CEO Mike Henry reportedly flew into SA on Thursday to sell his company’s $39 billion offer to buy Anglo – minus the SA assets (Kumba Iron Ore and Anglo American Platinum) – to shareholders, regulators and government officials.



Henry has his work cut out for him as the offer was rejected by Anglo American’s board last Friday (26 April) as too low, and the exclusion of SA-based assets Kumba and Angloplat from the deal is widely seen as a vote of no-confidence in SA.



He will have to contend with some long faces in Joburg. Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said he would not support the current deal and that his department had not been contacted by BHP to explain its plans.



Also on Thursday, the Australian mining giant issued a “clarification statement” that the decision to exclude the SA assets from the deal – which would see Kumba and Angloplat demerged and their shares distributed to Anglo shareholders – is based on portfolio and commodity considerations and “does not reflect a view of South Africa as an investment destination”.

- Moneyweb -



Patrice Motsepe-backed solar rental company GoSolr plans R10bn SA expansion



GoSolr, a company backed by South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe and the continent’s biggest bank, plans to spend R10 billion to roll out a model of renting solar panels and batteries to homes in the nation plagued by blackouts.

The two-and-a-half-year-old company seeks to install about 500MW of solar-generation capacity in four years. That’s up from its current 70MW, said Andrew Middleton, GoSolr’s chief executive officer. It has attracted investment and financing from Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital Investments Ltd. and Standard Bank.



The company, which say it’s the biggest of its kind in South Africa, is one of a number capitalising on the power cuts and surging electricity prices that have afflicted the country since 2008.



- FIN24 -



ExxonMobil pushing forward with Mozambique LNG project, official says



ExxonMobil is "optimistic and pushing forward" with its delayed Rovuma liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique and expects a final investment decision at the end of next year, a company official said on Thursday.



ExxonMobil and its partner Eni, are developing the Rovuma LNG project in offshore Area 4 in northern Mozambique, with Exxon leading the construction and operation of the onshore liquefaction and related facilities, while Eni concentrates on the Coral floating LNG and upstream operations.



When TotalEnergies declared force majeure in 2021 due to an offensive by Islamic State-linked insurgents that threatened its Area 1 Mozambique LNG plant, ExxonMobil was also affected due to the development of shared and common facilities, such as an LNG jetty and offloading facility.

"We recognise there are challenges and there are. We recognise that those challenges can be overcome if we work together," Arne Gibbs, general manager at ExxonMobil Mozambique, told an energy conference in Maputo.



"My message is quite simple ... We are optimistic, we are pushing forward," he said of a project expected to enter a front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase in a few months.

The project, initially slated for 15 million metric tons per annum (mtpa), has been redesigned to a new modular, electric LNG 18 mtpa plant that offers more flexibility and produces less harmful emissions, Gibbs said.

"It was important to change our design to a project that is ready-made, that is fit for purpose for the current business environment, including the attention to CO2 emissions and GHG (greenhouse gases)," he added.



- REUTERS -



Airbus called for compensation to take on money-losing Spirit operations, sources say



Airbus has called for financial compensation to take on money-losing operations from Spirit AeroSystems, a demand that has emerged as one obstacle to a tie-up deal between the supplier and its main customer Boeing, people familiar with the matter said.

Spirit and Airbus executives are holding talks in New York, first reported by Bloomberg, to try and work through issues such as the European plane maker's demands for financial compensation to take on the supplier's loss-making operations. They also include the mechanics of separating Airbus' business from Spirit, said two of the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.



It was not clear how the talks progressed or whether any of the obstacles were resolved.

The world’s dominant aircraft makers have been exploring how to untangle their respective ties with Spirit through a carefully timed "framework" deal to split operations, Reuters reported in April.

The sources did not give financial details, but industry sources have said a UK Airbus plant run by Spirit needs a $1 billion-plus re-investment to dig it out of losses.



- REUTERS -