Russia and Iran gas ventures

Just this sort of thing was discussed in the recent SCO summit in Shanghai.

Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom said on Monday, June 26, that it is considering joint oil and gas projects with Iranian state energy companies.

Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller met with Iran’s Deputy oil minister M.H. Nejad Hosseinian to discuss creating a joint venture to explore and develop oil and gas fields, and to transport and sell natural gas, the company said in a statement.

Despite international concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, Russia has close business ties with Iran. Moscow has arms contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Tehran and is building a nuclear power plant in the Iranian southern port of Bushehr under a $800 million contract.

Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s atomic energy agency, said on Monday that work at the plant was on schedule and would be completed in 2007, RIA-Novosti reported. “Our Iranian colleagues wanted it to be built faster, but it will be built to the schedule agreed,” the agency quoted him as saying.