Engen plans to take over BP

In an interview with Bloomberg, a top Engen official said the company will take advantage of this opportunity and buy BP assets as part of its expansion strategy and penetration into new markets. "We're on a growth programme and they're selling assets," Wayne Hartmann, Engen's General Manager for international business, said in an interview in Cape Town yesterday. "We're very small in Tanzania and missing in Malawi." While some of its rivals are reducing activities in Africa, Engen has a "positive outlook" on the continent and rolled out a record 30 sites last year, Hartmann said. While the company has a "healthy balance sheet," a stock exchange listing to fund acquisitions has not been ruled out, he said.

Engen, which has 40 filling stations across Botswana, is already listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange's foreign board and is the third largest oil company in Botswana after BP and Shell.