TEHRAN - Iran holds a stake in a refinery project in Malaysia and is considering taking stakes in refineries in five other countries, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company was quoted as saying on Monday. 

Hamid Sharif-Razi mentioned Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa, India, Brazil, and Sierra Leone as the countries Iran has been negotiating with to buy stakes, the Shana news agency reported.

“The company holds a 30 percent stake in a 250,000 barrel a day refinery project in Malaysia, and was planning to take a 40 percent stake in a 300,000 barrel a day refinery in Indonesia.”

Meanwhile, Abbas Kazemi, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, said in last May that Brazil has put in a request for revamping and renovating a number of its refineries, adding that India has asked Iran to build a refinery with the capacity of 400,000 barrels.

In September 2015, South African Deputy Oil Minister Thembisile Majola said state-owned PetroSA had agreed to help Tehran build a gas-to-liquid refinery in Mossel Bay that will use the Iranian crude.

Iran has announced a plan to build a 1.8-billion-euro oil refinery in Spain as recent sanctions relief allows Tehran to resume oil delivery to Europe.

The lifting last month of sanctions on Iran following the implementation of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers enables the country to resume crude oil exports to Europe, which had come to a halt in 2012.  

MA/