MOSCOW (Reuters) – Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said during a visit to Moscow on Friday that Iran would boost cooperation with Russia in agriculture and banking and remove barriers in all spheres of cooperation between the two countries.
Russia has deepened ties with Iran since the start of the military conflict in Ukraine and signed a strategic partnership treaty with Tehran in January. Both countries are under Western sanctions.
Speaking on state TV earlier on Friday, Paknejad said Iran will sign a $4 billion agreement with Russian companies to develop seven Iranian oilfields.
Russia has a long history of cooperation with Iran and helped build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr in the south of the country, Iran’s first.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in January in the Kremlin, said Russia may eventually supply up to 55 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year to Iran, though starting from lower volumes of up to 2 bcm.
A figure of 55 bcm would be similar to the throughput of the Nord Stream 1 undersea pipelines to Europe that were damaged by blasts in 2022 and have not delivered any gas since then.
Russian gas giant Gazprom signed a memorandum last June with the National Iranian Gas Company to supply Russian pipeline gas to Iran. Possible routes for the pipeline have not been disclosed.
Paknejad, speaking at a Russia-Iran intergovernmental commission in Moscow, said Iran would implement the agreements with Gazprom, including on a regional hub for distribution of gas. The two countries have long discussed setting up such a hub in Iran, with the possible participation of Qatar and Turkmenistan.
OPEC+
On Thursday Paknejad met Russian Deputy Prime minister Alexander Novak, Putin’s point man on relations with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The meeting took place as several members of OPEC+, the group comprising OPEC and its allies led by Russia, suggested the group accelerates oil output hikes in June for a second consecutive month, three sources familiar with OPEC+ talks told Reuters.
The proposed hikes underscore a worsening dispute between members over compliance with production quotas.
They come after calls from U.S. President Donald Trump for OPEC to lower oil prices and his return to a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran, whose oil exports Washington wants to reduce to zero.
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Olesya Astakhova
