By America Hernandez
PARIS (Reuters) -TotalEnergies said on Wednesday it had signed an agreement to sell 50% of Polish biogas producer Polska Grupa Biogazowa to Norwegian investment company HitecVision.
The French energy company said the sale agreement represented an enterprise value of 190 million euros ($213.6 million).
The deal will help Polska Grupa Biogazowa to continue growth in Poland where biogas is developing rapidly, Stéphane Michel, President of Gas, Renewables & Power at TotalEnergies said in a statement.
Erlend Ellingsen, CEO and Managing Partner of HitecVision, said the companies had complementary skills that they would put to use for “scaling” PGB significantly over the next few years through greenfield projects as well as M&A.
European Union rules allow countries and companies to count biogas as green energy alongside wind and solar and mandate its use via quotas, notably in the transport sector.
Last year, Total sold a 10% stake in its BioNorrois biogas unit to sugar maker Crystal Union.
The French company aims to produce 100 Terawatt-hours (TWh) worth of biogas by 2030, up from 1.2 TWh in 2024.
Biogas is chemically similar to natural gas drilled out of the ground but is made from animal waste and crop residue.
The HitecVision deal is subject to governmental and other regulatory approvals.
($1 = 0.8896 euros)
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak and Jane Merriman)
