REATILE BUYS CONTROL OF EGOLI GAS

Johannesburg – Reatile Group, a South African investment company with interests in energy, said it bought the 75 percent of Egoli Gas (Pty) Ltd., which provides the fuel to residents in Johannesburg, it didn’t already own.

Reatile paid for the purchase with its own equity and debt from Nedbank, it said in a statement.

Egoli gas tank in Auckland Park is going to be demolished making a way for a new hotel. 459 Picture:Matthews Baloyi 4/18/2010

The transaction was completed in April, it said.

Egoli Gas, which has a pipeline spanning 1,200 kilometres (746 miles) in the greater Johannesburg area and has more than 7,000 customers, will continue with the existing management, it said.

Reatile Group “will continue to search for opportunities and partnerships in liquid natural gas and shale gas,” it said.

South Africa in September lifted a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses a large volume of water pumped underground to help extract shale gas, to assess the area known as the Karoo.

This arid area of western South Africa may hold 485 trillion cubic feet of shale resources, US Energy Information Administration data show.

Cottesloe Investment Holdings owned 70 equity in Egoli Gas, while Egoli Empowerment Holdings owned 5 percent before the takeover, according to the gas provider’s website. – Bloomberg News

PUBLISHED in the Business Report, please click here for the full article.

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