S.Africa April crude imports from Iran down 43 pct

JOHANNESBURG May 31 (Reuters) - South Africa's crude oil imports from Iran fell 43 percent to 286,072 tonnes in April from the previous month, customs data showed on Thursday, indicating Pretoria could be cutting shipments to avoid looming U.S. sanctions.

South Africa has come under Western pressure to cut Iranian crude imports as part of sanctions designed to halt Tehran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, but the response from diplomatically non-aligned Pretoria has been unclear for months.

The Revenue Service said the value of crude imports from Iran fell to 1.798 billion rand ($211.53 million) in April from 3.37 billion rand the previous month.

Imports from Saudi Arabia nearly doubled to 671,419 tonnes from 355,550 tonnes in March. (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)