Swiss commodities trader and mining firm Glencore said last Friday it had reached a deal to buy Chevron’s 75 percent stake in its South African subsidiary and its Botswana interests for a combined $973 million, replacing China’s Sinopec as the buyer of these Chevron assets. Glencore stepped in after local shareholders exercised pre-emption rights following delays to the Sinopec deal. The other 25% of Chevron’s South African assets are owned by a consortium including the South African National Taxi Council, African Legend, Lithemba and Ditikeni and by an employee trust.

Per the deal, Glencore will acquire 75% controlling stake in Chevron’s 100,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery in Cape Town, a lubricants plant in Durban as well as 820 petrol stations and other oil storage facilities. It also includes 220 convenience stores across South Africa and Botswana.

An industry source familiar with Glencore’s mergers and acquisitions activities said the company was looking to bring in a partner into the asset.

Glencore said it expects the deal to close in mid-2018.

In March, Chevron announced that it had agreed the sale of its assets to China’s largest refiner Sinopec, for nearly $1 billion. As of May, the deal had been under review by South Africa’s Economic Development ministry.

Glencore was among the bidders for the stake last year along with oil major Total and rival trading house Gunvor.

Baar, Switzerland-based Glencore is one of the world’s largest diversified and vertically-integrated commodity producers, processors and traders. It markets and distributes to a wide customer base that includes the industrial, automotive, construction, steel, power generation, oil and food processing industries. Glencore's 2016 revenue was $177.4 billion. The company was formed in 1994 by a management buyout of Marc Rich + Co AG.