SOUTH Africa has extended the terms of reference of its investigation into a deal between the state’s oil trading arm, the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), and traders High Beam International and Trafigura. Auditors would investigate any transaction between SFF and any company that participated in the sale of crude oil from SFF’s Ogies mine storage facility and its replacement with other oil at SFF’s Saldanha Bay storage facility, the energy ministry said. The deal between SFF and High Beam and Trafigura effectively privatised the country’s oil trading operations without the minister’s knowledge and left the country without any strategic crude reserves. – Reuters