CSR SELLS OIL/GAS INTERESTS, BIDS TO EXTEND SUGAR CSR Ltd has made a bold move in selling its oil and gas interests for almost a billion dlrs and ploughing 150 mln into its traditional sugar business, share analysts said. CSR said it had dropped plans to float its oil and gas interests held in the Delhi Australia Fund and would instead sell them to Exxon Corp unit Esso Exploration and Production Australia Inc for 985 mln dlrs. In a twin announcement CSR, already Australia's largest sugar refiner, made a 2.20 dlr a share bid for the 70 pct it does not already hold in Pioneer Sugar Mills Ltd. A float of part of Delhi would have raised between 200 and 300 mln dlrs, but in opting to sell outright CSR had given itself the cash to all but eliminate its debt and embark on an ambitious expansion programme in its best-performing divisions of sugar and building products, analysts said. The Pioneer Sugar investment would give CSR by far the largest stake in Australia's 850 mln dlr a year sugar industry and access to some of the best sugar properties and mills in the country, they said. Pioneer Sugar was expected to recommend acceptance of the bid, through which CSR would benefit from the bottoming out of a cyclical downturn in sugar prices.