Commodity Online
PRETORIA: Venezuela and South Africa on Tuesday signed a key energy deal which South African President Thabo Mbeki and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez touted as a strategic cooperation.

The two countries signed a string of agreements yesterday mainly to strengthen cooperation in the energy sector.

South Africa sees Venezuela’s oil as a way of circumventing the kind of crisis in the coal-driven electricity supply that stuck earlier this year when acute shortages caused widespread blackouts.

“Venezuela, a member of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), has one of the largest oil reserves in the world and developing commercial relations in this sector could provide alternative sources of energy to South Africa,” the foreign affairs department said in the statement.

Chavez, who arrived in South Africa late Monday on his first state visit to the country, went into a closed-door meeting yesterday midday with Mbeki after a rousing official welcome ceremony, AFP correspondents at the venue said. He reviewed a guard of honor and was given a 21-canon salute at the grounds of the Union Buildings, where Mbeki’s office is located in the capital Pretoria.

South Africa’s exports rose to 275.8 million rand in June 2007, from 107 million in 2005 and 156 million in 2006.