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by unwoundmouse 1686 days ago
Yeah this doesn't make sense to me either. If you assume the gas rights for all the land on the earth is priced that low (it isn't) you could buy all it for $1mm.

Also, I can't imagine the seller would be like "hmm, this guy wants to buy gas rights on 87,000 hectares of land for $1. Sounds like a good deal!" without thinking maybe there was something special and investigated for themselves first.

1 comments

Land is cheap in that part of South Africa, but certainly not that cheap. For reference, [1] is 231ha of almost undeveloped land listed for about $100000.

I suspect it is tax evasion or a nepotism deal.

[1] https://www.property24.com/for-sale/bloemfontein-rural/bloem...

It's almost certainly nepotism.
Could also be some sort of tax or bankruptcy auction in exchange for them taking on some big liability?