A senior official in the South African government has said the country is ready to resume importing oil from Iran
Deputy foreign minister Nomaindiya Mfeketo was this week quoted by Reuters as saying the two countries would begin trading “tomorrow” if the international sanctions were lifted.
Six major world powers – the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia – agreed in July of this year to lift the longstanding international economic sanctions on Iran, following the Middle Eastern state’s decision to curb its nuclear programme.
“We are definitely negotiating and looking at when to fully resume oil imports from Iran,” Mfeketo told Reuters. “For South Africa, if there’s a process of doing that lawfully, tomorrow we will do it, if there are no obstacles to that.”
Following the decision in principle to lift the sanctions two months ago, South Africa said it had never agreed with the trading restrictions, which had harmed its own oil refiners.
Iran was once the largest supplier of crude oil to South Africa, exporting some 380,000 barrels per day (bpd) to Africa’s most industrialised country.
