Tehran calls it the largest foreign investment commitment in the history of the Iranian oil industry
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Russian gas producer Gazprom have signed a memorandum of understanding worth around $40 billion, Iran’s oil ministry’s news agency Shana said.
The deal was signed during an online ceremony on July 19 attended by NIOC chief executive Mohsen Khojasteh Mehr and Gazprom management committee deputy chairman Vitaly Markelov.
Mehr described the MoU as “one of the biggest foreign investments in the history of Iran’s oil industry”.
The agreement was inked on the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Tehran to meet with Iranian and Turkish heads of state. Putin held meetings with both Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini.
The deal covers development projects at several Iranian oil and gas fields, including a $10 billion project in Kish and North Pars gas fields located in the Persian Gulf as well as a $15 billion project to boost pressure at South Pars, the world’s largest gas field located on the maritime border between Iran and Qatar.
Iran and Russia are the world’s top two global energy suppliers.
Meanwhile, the European Union has signed a new gas deal with Azerbaijan to double imports of natural gas by 2027 to at least 20 billion cubic meters to reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.