TEHRAN – Iran is ready to sell South Africa 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and also to buy shares in the African country’s oil refineries, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Saturday.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting with the visiting South African energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson in Tehran, Mehr news agency reported.

“Along with talks around oil and oil products exports to the African country, we have also discussed gas-to-liquids (GTL) projects which South Africa is willing to execute in Iran,” Zanganeh noted.

The minister further said Iran’s National Development Fund (NDF) could support Iranian companies for purchasing shares of South African refineries.

The South African minister also held talks with Marziyeh Shahdaie, the managing director of Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC), on Sunday and expressed her country’s interest to investment in Iran’s petrochemical sector, especially in GTL projects.

Iran was the major exporter of crude oil to South Africa before the imposition of sanctions on Tehran in 2012. The African country imported about 380,000 bpd of oil from Iran in the pre-sanctions era.  

EF/MA/MG