Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Iran is ready to export 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day to South Africa, the Islamic Republic’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, said.
Zanganeh made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting with South African Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on a visit to Tehran March 4, Mehr news agency reported.
Sales of crude oil and oil products to the African country were the main topic of the mutual talks, Zanganeh said, adding that Iran is also ready to support private sector companies, which are interested to purchase refinery shares in South Africa.
Zanganeh further said that the issue of implementing Gas to Liquids (GTL) projects was also discussed at the meeting.
The two parties have recently held various talks regarding the issue, but no result was achieved so far due to disputes over gas prices, he added.
A new round of talks will be held between the National Iranian Petrochemical Company and the South African counterparts regarding the issue on March 5, Zanganeh said.
The African country was one of Iran's traditional oil markets before the sanctions were imposed on the Islamic Republic due to its disputed nuclear program.
During the last month before sanctions cut down Iran's crude oil exports (June 2012), South Africa was buying averagely 68,000 barrels of oil from Tehran per day.