A consortium including Danish labour-market pension provider Sampension, Davidson Kempner Capital Management and Pioneer Point Partners is selling Nature Energy Biogas to Shell in a $2bn (€1.9bn) deal.
The NGF Partnership has agreed to sell the biomethane producer to Shell Petroleum, Shell’s energy and petrochemical business.
Based in Denmark, Nature Energy is the largest renewable natural gas (RNG) producer in Europe. The company was founded in 1979 as a natural gas distributor and created its first biogas plant in Denmark in 2015.
Nature Energy produces RNG from agricultural, industrial, and household wastes. The company currently owns and operates 14 industrial-scale biomethane plants and an international development pipeline of about 30 plants across Europe and North America.
The NGF Partnership acquired Nature Energy in 2018. Over the last five years, Nature Energy has grown and increased the number of plants in operation from 4 to 14.
Jesper Lok, chairman of the board of Nature Energy, said: “Under the stewardship of the NGF Partnership, Nature Energy has grown into a leading producer of biomethane from organic waste and has pioneered a standardised large-scale commercial production process in Denmark that creates higher on-farm crop yields.
“Under the new ownership of Shell, our team will continue to advance its unique vision of unlocking additional valuable resources from waste materials while offering secure and affordable energy to customers and promoting a circular economy.”
Ole Hvelplund, CEO of Nature Energy, said: “This transaction would not be possible without the entire Nature Energy organisation, our talented and dedicated employees, our industry partners, as well as our investors — who always believed in our mission and have made invaluable contributions to Nature Energy’s growth and success.
“We look forward to the next phase of growth, and we remain excited about our near-term prospects to help address both the current energy insecurity, as well as the longer-term potential for biomethane capacity set out in the REPowerEU plan.”
Huibert Vigeveno, Shell’s downstream director, said: “Shell’s competitiveness in low-carbon fuels derives from capabilities across the value chain, combining a world-class trading and supply organisation with access to differentiated technology and production assets.
“Acquiring Nature Energy will add a European production platform and growth pipeline to Shell’s existing RNG projects in the United States. We will use this acquisition to build an integrated RNG value chain at global scale, at a time when energy transition policies and customer preferences are signalling strong growth in demand in the years ahead.”
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