APA-Pretoria (South Africa) South Africa’s national oil company Petro South Africa (PetroSA) has awarded a US$265 million contract to Russia’s state-owned Gazprombank to help it revive its gas-to-liquids plant “in line with increasing trade and investments within the BRICS nations,” press reports monitored here said on Wednesday.
South African Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, is quoted as saying PetroSA’s decision to award the contract to Gazprombank was in line with the desire to increase trade and investment within the BRICS grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
“There would be no point being in BRICS if South Africa did not partner with BRICS countries in trade and investment,” the reports quoted the minister as saying.
She added: “It’s part of our making sure that we build a resilient economy that is not susceptible to only one side of the global balance of power.”
The facility’s refurbishment and recommissioning were “critical components of PetroSA’s turnaround strategy,” Ntshavheni said.
The bank, which has been under US sanctions since early 2022 due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, won the contract after 19 fellow bidders were disqualified on technical grounds from the competition because of “unusually strict technical criteria,” the reports said.
The 45,000 barrels-a-day PetroSA facility at Mossel Bay on the country’s southern coast stopped operations in 2020 after running out of feedstock.
The plant was likely to play a key role in the development of a large South African gas project, following two huge offshore gas discoveries by French international TotalEnergies in 2019 and 2020, the reports added.
BRICS has expanded by accepting requests for membership from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
NM/jn/APA