Nearly three years after international sanctions put a moratorium on oil trade between South Africa and Iran, Africa’s most advanced economy plans to reinstate its energy relation with Iran.

Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the energy minister, said, this weekend, that South Africa was looking at cooperating with Iran concerning crude oil, LNG, LPG, gas and petrochemicals. She was visiting Tehran at the weekend.

Joemat-Pettersson added that South African companies could inject money in many parts of Iran’s oil sector.
Mohsen Ghamsari, director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), was quoted as saying South Africa was poised to import crude oil and other energy products from Iran.

In May 2012, South Africa acquired about 68.000 barrels a day of Iran’s crude. And in September last year, Africa’s second-largest crude consumer expressed interest in restarting imports from Iran, Reuters reported on Monday.

Iran’s exports of crude have slipped to about 1.1 million barrels a day, from a high of 2.5 million barrels a day in 2012 due to international sanctions, which made it tough for Iran to get buyers of its energy. Iran is currently in talks with world powers to cancel crippling economic sanctions against it. Iran could in turn introduce tough controls on its disputed nuclear programme.