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South Africa wants $100 a barrel oil before selling more crude stocks - REUTERS
CAPE TOWN, May 21 (Reuters) - South Africa will wait for global oil prices to rise to around $100 a barrel before selling more of its strategic crude reserves, a senior energy official told Reuters.
The country has been looking to sell crude since 2022, when the government cushioned consumers from high petrol and diesel prices by temporarily cutting a fuel levy on the condition that the revenue would be recouped by selling oil from the strategic reserves. Brent crude averaged $99 a barrel that year.
Global crude prices have taken a hammering in recent weeks, hurt by worries that U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war could push economies around the world into recession. Brent was trading around $66 a barrel on Wednesday.
"The oil price is too low, so if you sell today you are going to empty the tanks. So we have to sell at the right level to make sure we still have strategic stocks," Godfrey Moagi, CEO of the state-owned South
