Russia Signs US$4 Billion Contract To Develop Seven Iranian Oil Fields, Establishes Supply Chain Routes Via INSTC To India
Mohsen Khojaste Mehr, the CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company has said that Iran has signed the biggest strategic investment deal in the history of Iran’s oil-related matters with Russia.
The deal was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran to discuss Syrian reconstruction together with Turkish President Recip Erdogan.
Mehr made the announcement at the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation memorandum between Iran’s National Oil Company and Russia’s Gazprom, stating that “Iran needs $160 billion worth of investments in its oil and natural gas industries in the coming years.” and confirming that an initial US$4 billion contract has been signed with Russian companies for the development of 7 Iranian oil fields, with the potential to rise to a total of US$40 billion as other related projects come onstream.
Iran has been planning to attract Russian investments to develop its Kish and North Pars fields, as well as trigger the development of six other oil fields. Between them, Mehr made the announcement at the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation memorandum between Iran’s National Oil Company and Russia’s Gazprom, stating that “Iran needs $160 billion worth of investments in its oil and natural gas industries in the coming years.” and confirming that Russia and Iran possess the world’s third largest oil reserves after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
In related news, a Russian energy consortium is reviewing the transit of its energy, oil, and petrochemical products via Iran’s Sarakhs–Bandar Abbas railway route, according to Acting President of Sarakhs Governorate Hassan Nourizadeh, This supply chain is part of the INSTC which runs north-south through Iran from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.
Nourizadeh stated that “Representatives of a Russian consortium have recently visited Sarakhs County in Razavi Khorasan Province and evaluated annual transit of 3 million tons of petrochemical products via the Iran route. A Russian convoy of 39 containers arrived at the Sarakhs border crossing last week for the purpose of transit to the Southern port of Bandar Abbas where it will continue its journey to India’s port of Nhava Sheva. (Mumbai)”
According to the Nourizadeh, a total of 3.2 million tons of commodities valued at US$5.6 billion including export, import, and transit have been transported through roads and railway tests from the Sarakhs border. Of this, 1.7 million tons were transited in and 700,000 tons outside the Iranian border.
The Sarakhs border terminal is located northeast of Razavi Khorasan Province on the Iranian border with Turkmenistan.
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