EDITORIAL: Sinopec’s deal with Chevron is a big win for SA
Last week’s announcement that China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) would buy 75% of US oil major Chevron’s South African business comes after a fairly dramatic year-long process during which a couple of the unsuccessful bidders made the news for the wrong reasons. First, the leaders of SA’s Strategic Fuel Fund had to resign after they announced the fund’s intention to make a bid for the Chevron assets with what the Department of Energy described as "complete disregard for governance processes". Then another set of bidders ended up in a New York court when Swiss-based oil trader Gunvor sued private equity house Cerberus for failing to pay its share of the costs incurred in their failed joint $650m bid for the Chevron SA assets. Along the way, it emerged that Sasol had tried its hand, as did another big global oil trader, Vitol. Chevron, which sells fuel under the Caltex brand name in SA, finally opted to take Sinopec’s $900m offer for its South African and Botswana assets. It is...
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