South Africa Looks to Moscow for Energy Needs

Published on December 14, 2023

JOHANNESBURG—South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) government has endorsed a sanctioned multinational energy corporation owned by the Russian state to rebuild a gas refinery. The deal will be financed to the tune of almost 4 billion rands ($212 million) by Gazprombank, the financial arm of Gazprom, Moscow’s gas company. In May 2022, the United States Treasury placed Gazprombank under sanctions for “funding Russia’s war machine” in Ukraine. The gas deal will put South Africa, the second largest economy on the continent, into massive debt to Moscow, giving the Putin administration a stronger hold over a country that’s expected shortly to be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council....

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