Russia Doubles Exports To Iran In Last 6 Months

Iran has increased its imports from Russia, nearly double the value from last year, according to the latest official figures.

“In the first half of this year, goods worth $663 million have been imported from Russia, and this figure 99.88 percent is more than the figure recorded in the same period of the last year,” Iran’s Fars news agency cited the Customs Office’s report as saying. Iran uses a Persian calendar in which the year begins around March 20, according to the Gregorian calendar. September 20 roughly marks the six-month mark.

Iran’s imports from Russia amounted to 1.373 million tons and were worth $743.151 million in the Iranian year spanning March 2017 to March 2018. Iran exported 540,471 tons of goods to Russia during that time, worth $285.7 million.

The two Caspian countries are considered “strategic partners” by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, including foreign policy. Tehran and Moscow have supported the government of Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad, who has been waging a civil war and fighting militants since the spring of 2011.

In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is prepared to continue investments in Iran’s hydrocarbons sector at the tune of about $50 billion, even in the face U.S. sanctions on the industry that are to kick in by November 4.

"If new sanctions are imposed, we will continue our cooperation,” Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week forum in Moscow on October 3. “We are interested in continuing our cooperation with Iran, which is our long-term economic partner. Certainly, we need to further find the forms of cooperation to fulfill joint projects," Novak said, according to TASS.

During a phone conversation on October 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed global issues and bilateral cooperation in the energy sector, TASS cited the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying.

Iran and Russia have yet to implement an oil-for-goods scheme, first signed in 2014 and extended in April for five more years. The arrangement calls for Iranian crude exports of up to 500,000 barrels per day in return for Russian goods, and allows Iran to use Russian machinery, equipment and installations that Iran needs for its petroleum, mining, construction and transportation sectors. Around 300,000 barrels of Iranian crude per day would be swapped via the Caspian Sea, and the remaining oil shipped from the Persian Gulf.

Iran is also in talks with Russia to build an underwater gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India along the bottom of the Persian Gulf. According to reports by the Chronicles of Turkmenistan, a deputy director at the National Iranian Oil Company, Gholamreza Manouchehri, the four countries have reached an agreement to complete the project and new memorandums of understanding will be signed soon.