PetroSA gets four more years -- PW Botha's revenge

The continuing economic lunacy of Mossgas/PetroSA never fails to astonish. Born out of the paranoia of PW Botha, the plant outside Mossel Bay has been milking the taxpayers ever since. Now we have the trumpeted news that (hooray) five new wells, drilled at a cost of R3.2 billion will give the elephant four more years of production. The self congratulatory tone of the PetroSA press release sets Spigot's teeth on edge but it pales before the excitement evident in the public utterances of that other partner in the patch-up -- Pioneer Natural Resources, a US-based minor oil company. They boast that their deal with PetroSA links the price they can charge "their" gas supplied to PetroSA with the price of Brent crude. Isn't that cozy? Pioneer owns 45% of the operation and sells its production from the project.Production from the five wells will be 50 million cubic feet of gas equivalent per day. Nice money. "We appreciate the efforts of PetroSA in accomplishing this goal, and look forward to continuing our successful relationship." No kidding.