Guinea has asked for Iran’s help to obtain supplies of oil products as the state feels the squeeze of high prices for energy imports and food products like cereals, the government said.

Guinea’s Economy, Finance and Planning Minister Ousmane Dore visited Iran last month and explained to its leaders the impact on his oil-importing country of high crude prices, which have pushed up the cost of staple food imports across Africa.
“He asked for Iran’s financial support to sustain the supply of oil products to our country,” a government spokesman Justin Morel Junior said.
Guinean motorists have been besieging gasoline stations for several days because of fears that supplies would run out.
Authorities have denied there is any risk of this. In September, demonstrators took to the streets of the capital Conakry to protest at the rising cost of goods.
This followed union-led strikes and protests in January and February that led to the deaths of more than 130 people and forced President Lansana Conte to appoint a new prime minister.
Junior did not specify exactly how much assistance Guinea was seeking from Iran or what it offered in return.
The West African state is the world’s leading exporter of bauxite, the raw material from which aluminium is made, and announced in August it had discovered its first commercially viable reserves of uranium.
Major oil producers like Venezuela and Iran have been offering oil supply deals to some countries in Africa as part of efforts to garner support for their diplomatic campaign to counter the global influence of the US.
Guinea’s neighbour Senegal said in August Iran’s national oil company would take a stake in its refinery and sell the West African country a year’s supply of crude oil on preferential credit terms.