Ivan Glasenberg, the South African billionaire and largest individual shareholder in commodities giant Glencore Plc, has watched his company's local fuel arm Astron Energy rebrand its 700th South African service station, extending a takeover of the country's retail fuel market that now reshapes where most motorists fill up.
Astron hit the milestone at a forecourt in KwaZulu-Natal, the company said, adding that it has converted a new site to the Astron brand roughly every day since passing the 500-station mark in mid-2025. The push has turned what was the local Caltex business, acquired from Chevron in 2018, into one of the three largest fuel retail networks in South Africa, a position Glasenberg has publicly backed with capital.
The retail expansion is anchored by a R6 billion 328 million investment program announced earlier this year to upgrade Astron's Cape Town refinery, the country's third largest. That facility can process about 100,000 barrels a day of crude into petrol, diesel, jet fuel and bitumen, and is critical at a time when South Africa is increasingly reliant on imported refined products.
