No Plan for Russia’s Iran Oil Marketing

Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has dismissed reports of an agreement with Russia to sell oil for Iran.

“In the negotiations for selling oil, we do not restrict ourselves to anything, but rumors about the signature of a contract with Russia for selling Iran’s oil are not true,” Zanganeh said.

He said during his meeting with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, a memorandum was signed for development of economic, technical and trade ties between the two countries.

“During this trip [last week], an agreement was also signed for facilitating banking operations between Iranian and Russian banks with the objective of accelerating business operations in the two countries,” said the minister.

Zanganeh said Iran plans to raise its oil production by 700,000 b/d over the coming three years as part of the government plan to push the country out of recession.

The minister also said that Iran plans to increase production from the massive South Pars gas field by 300 mcm/d by March 2016.

He said that Iran will start developing Phase 11 of the offshore field, shared with Qatar, even if the Western governments do not lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to return to Iran.

Emad Askarieh

Emad Askarieh has worked as a journalist since 2002. The main focus of his work is foreign policy and world diplomacy. He started his career at Iran Front Page Media Group, and is currently serving as the World Editor and the Vice-President for Executive Affairs at the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website.