Hon Speaker, hon Deputy President, as you stated, South Africa is one of the few countries that were granted a six-month grace period in which to secure contracts to substitute for our Iranian crude oil supply. However, given that 30% of our current supply comes from Iran on a term contract, we are under extreme pressure to tie up alternative contracts within the next four months if we are to ensure security of supply.
Is this work being left solely up to PetroSA, or is the government at the highest level engaging with oil-producing countries to secure a future supply? I ask this because Nigeria recently indicated that it could not secure contracts with PetroSA, as it had to be a government-to-government contract.
Now, Nigeria will be publishing the list of countries that it will be supplying at the end of this week. Can South Africa therefore expect to find itself on this list? If not, will this indicate that South Africa is not taking this issue seriously enough, and what will you do to ensure that we have alternative supplies in place within the next four months? I thank you.