Renergen, the owner of South Africa’s only onshore helium and liquid natural gas (LNG) project and which plans a Nasdaq listing this year, said last week that its helium system integration was nearly complete.

The company said in a quarterly update also that conditions for the Mahlako Gas Energy investment had been satisfied, with the receipt of R550 million for a 5.5% equity stake in Renergen’s subsidiary Tetra4 Proprietary, received in February 2024.

The share price ended 3.2% higher at R11.25 on Friday.

Otherwise, plant maintenance was complete, production had started and previous issues around the mixed refrigerant compressor had been resolved. LNG deliveries to customers resumed in early February.

The investment by Airsol had also been completed. Its $7 million (R130m) investment into Renergen convertible debentures had followed a due diligence.

The debentures are convertible into securities on completion of the initial public offering on the Nasdaq, planned for later this year, the update said.

SOL group was founded in Italy in 1927 and operates in 32 countries. It has a big presence in the industrial gases market including helium, across the world.

SOL would also bring significant LNG experience, Renergen said.

On the helium system integration, the OEM supplier arrived on site in late February 2024 to complete the final step in commissioning of the plant, which was progressing well.

“We confirm the nitrogen cold box and helium cold box have both been fully integrated and the helium storage tank is cooled to 20 degrees Kelvin. We have recovered our tail gas stream into concentrated helium of 99.95% purity, achieving the design specifications prior to liquefaction.

From here, the helium faces a last filtration process to reach 99.999% purity for liquefaction. These results have been verified by an independent South African National Accreditation System ("SANAS") approved laboratory.”

The OEM and Tetra4 were completing pre-checks and assessments before collectively embarking on the next step of commercial liquefaction for customers.

Once liquefaction starts, the liquid helium will be used to further cool the storage tank to 4 degrees Kelvin and will signal the start of the final performance test by the OEM.

The plant maintenance was undertaken and completed in February 2024. A contractual and insurance related claim was being explored as a result of the root cause determination of a maintenance failure.

A total of 154 tons of LNG were produced in February 2024 as the plant transitioned from complete outage into operating plant status.

“Our focus will be to continue to ramp up production and increase efficiency and reliability in the months to come.”

Airsol, subsidiary of SOL, completed its $7m investment into unsecured convertible debentures in Renergen following the completion of a due diligence.

The debentures are convertible into securities after the initial public offering on the Nasdaq, planned for later this year.

The SOL group, founded in Italy in 1927 and operational in 32 countries, has a big presence in the industrial gases market including helium, across the world.

SOL also brought significant liquefied natural gas experience to the table, a statement said.

BUSINESS REPORT