COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

New solar farm to help power SasolA new 97.5MW solar farm in the Free State will help power Sasol and Air Liquide's operations in Secunda, Mpumalanga, from 2025.The renewable energy project has reached financial close, the developer Mainstream Renewable Power said in a statement. Mainstream is contracted for 20 years to produce the power the companies will use. Mainstream has developed eight wind and solar plants, with a combined capacity of 850MW, in South Africa over the past 15 years.The capital requirement is almost R2 billion, and the lenders are Absa and FirstRand Bank, Mainstream said in response to questions.Sasol, a global chemicals and energy company, is South Africa's second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after power utility Eskom. The company, however, has been working on projects to decarbonise its operations, such as using green hydrogen as a fuel source and relying on renewable energy to meet electricity needs.-Fin24PetroSA pushes for R3.7bn deal with RussiaThe state-owned Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (PetroSA) wants to partner with Russia’s Gazprombank to restart the gas-to-liquids refinery in Mossel Bay.PetroSA advertised a tender in January looking for a partner willing to invest at least $200 million (R3.7 billion) to refurbish the refinery. Twenty companies submitted bids, but the unusually strict technical criteria meant that 19 of the 20 were eliminated, leaving Gazprombank’s local subsidiary, GPB Africa & Middle East, as the only qualifying bid.However, leaked documents, seen by amaBhungane, reveal that the PetroSA bid evaluation committee and board raised concerns about partnering with Gazprombank, which is under US sanctions, and advised PetroSA to enter into negotiations with other bidders, including Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR, and China’s state-owned energy infrastructure company, CMEC.PetroSA pushed back with a legal opinion from Ledwaba Mazwai Attorneys that said it had "no right to entertain other offers" aside from the Russians’.-Fin24OpenAI announces Altman to return as CEOOpenAI announced on Tuesday its co-founder Sam Altman will return as CEO, days after he was fired by the board."We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo," it said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.OpenAI's board sacked Altman last week, with Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella announcing soon after he was hiring Altman to run a new artificial intelligence research team.But in the fast-moving sequence of events, Altman said Tuesday he had the support of Nadella for his return as OpenAI's CEO."With the new board and w satya's support, i'm looking forward to returning to openai, and building on our strong partnership with (Microsoft)," he wrote on X.-Fin24Telkom may skip next spectrum auctionSouth Africa's third-largest mobile phone operator says it may not participate in the next auction of high-demand radio frequency spectrum unless changes are made and "untenable conditions" are lifted.The majority state-owned company didn't to go into specifics, adding it had not yet received a response from the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), on its request for the next auction to be postponed by a year. "In principle, unless there are changes fundamentally, Telkom might not be intentionally participating in the next auction," CEO Serame Taukubong told News24, adding: If the structure remains intact as it was before, with the restrictions and untenable conditions attached, Telkom may not intentionally participate in the next auction.Telkom had launched a legal challenge to the first auction, but ultimately reached an out-of-court settlement in 2022.-Fin24Dulux blocked from buying Plascon in SAThe Competition Tribunal has blocked a proposed merger between the owners of paint brands Dulux and Plascon in South Africa. AkzoNobel, the Dutch multinational that owns the Dulux brand, had wanted to buy out the shareholding of Kansai Plascon Africa. The deal would have combined the largest and second-largest paint companies in South Africa. The Competition Commission prohibited the proposed merger last year, after finding it would result in a "substantial lessening" of competition in the market for the manufacturing and supply of paint.The merging parties then approached the tribunal with a request for reconsideration, saying they would divest KPAL's Micatex brand in a bid to reduce their market dominance. "The tribunal heard evidence over 10 days from factual and economic expert witnesses, including evidence on the commission’s market testing report on the proposed divestiture," the tribunal said. -Fin24

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