Renergen’s share price rocketed 37.3% on the JSE on Friday after it said the long-awaited event of filling a container with liquid helium had taken place.

The closing share price, however, was still below the R10.90 it traded at a year ago and well down from the R37.50 it traded at three years ago, before many shareholders appeared to become disaffected with the slow pace of development of South Africa’s first onshore liquid natural gas and helium production facility at Virginia, in the Free State, and the share price declined since then.

The company drew significant retail shareholder interest when it first announced a big helium reserve on its site in October 2021, but there have been many delays in developing the gas exploitation and production facilities.

On Friday, the company said the helium container is being collected by a customer.

“After facing challenges cooling large iso-containers to the extreme temperatures needed for liquid helium storage (-268 degrees Celsius), we’ve implemented an effective alternate solution,” CEO Stephano Marani said in a statement.

He said they would now regularly fill smaller Dewars (250-300 litres) containers with liquid helium. “This practical approach will continue until our plant reaches close to nameplate capacity,” he added.

He said their team began cooling the vessel on March 13 at 9 am and completed the fill mid-afternoon.

“The quality of both our LNG and liquid helium now exceeds minimum design specifications. We remain committed to increasing production and developing the Virginia Gas Project to its full potential,” Marani said.

He said their operations team had “poured their hearts and souls into overcoming the technical challenges.”

He noted that successfully managing cryogenic liquid at -269 degrees was an accomplishment achieved by very few companies in the world.

“We remain committed to restoring confidence through consistent delivery and performance as we continue to advance the project,” he said.

Renergen attracted social media comment on Friday on the “X” platform. Smalltalkdaily Research (@smalltalkdaily) said: “A positive first step but many bridges need to be rebuilt. Some investors will not wish to walk that path understandably given the trials of the past two years, but this morning's announcement is a positive sign that Renergen's VP1 helium concept is now proven.”

Long-time critic of the company and shareholder activist Albie Cilliers (@albie_cilliers) wrote: “Marani of Renergen today claimed ‘Successfully managing cryogenic liquid at -269 degrees Celsius is a remarkable accomplishment achieved by very few companies worldwide.' However, he fails to mention that hundreds, if not thousands of universities and research entities the world over do this quite regularly with Dewars, even liquefying their own helium.”

Chapter11 (@Chapter11Wealth) claimed: “...Insiders filled their bags before today’s news, scrawny volumes on 5, 6, 7th then massive volumes 10, 11, 12 & 13th. Something rotten in the state of Virginia.”

RW (@Im_RickW) wrote: “If I had to guess it’s the insider who was feeding info to the guy who’s been down ramping this company since forever, and people who had shorts open were closing them, but hey… what do I know?”

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