Baku, Azerbaijan, May 3
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
South Africa will resume importing crude oil from Iran in the nearest future, the country's energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said.
She added that South Africa is seeking to sign a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Iran for a wide range of energy cooperation issues.
Joemat-Pettersson also said that the South Africa wants to establish a cooperation framework with the Islamic Republic in oil, LNG, LPG, gas and petrochemical sector.
She added that the framework will pave a ground for investment of the South African private sector in various fields of Iran's oil industry, Iranian oil ministry's official SHANA news agency reported May 3.
Joemat-Pettersson earlier met with Iranian oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and discussed oil and gas cooperation.
The sides reviewed the mechanisms for resuming cooperation once the international sanctions against Iran are removed.
South Africa was one of Iran's traditional oil markets before the sanctions were imposed on the Islamic Republic due to its disputed nuclear program.
Last month before the sanctions cut down Iran's crude oil exports (June 2012), South Africa was buying averagely 68,000 barrels of oil from Tehran per day.
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