Iran and Russia gas agreement near finalization, acting oil minister says

Iran's acting oil minister said on Sunday that a gas agreement between Iran and Russia is nearing finalization, speaking during a visit to Moscow where he accompanied President Masoud Pezeshkian to the eighth summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).

Cooperation between the two countries in the gas sector entered a new phase in June 2024, when the National Iranian Gas Company and Russia's Gazprom signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the transfer of Russian natural gas to Iran. In April 2025, officials from both countries said they were examining plans to transport Russian gas to Iran via Azerbaijan. At the time, the initial transfer volume was estimated at around 1.8 billion cubic meters per year, while the project's potential capacity in later phases was put at up to 55 billion cubic meters annually.

As negotiations progressed, Saeed Tavakoli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company, said in June 2026 that gas pricing and payment arrangements remained among the issues under discussion for finalizing a Russian gas import contract. The acting oil minister also reported progress on broad gas exchange agreements as negotiations between the two countries continued. However, the details of the new agreement and its relationship with the proposed gas import project via Azerbaijan were not specified in the reported remarks.

The presidents of Iran and Russia are scheduled to meet in the coming days on the sidelines of the eighth GECF summit. Earlier, President Pezeshkian and Russian President Vladimir Putin had emphasized the development of economic and strategic cooperation in the energy sector during a meeting on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit.

According to Mehr News, the reported remarks did not specify the terms of the new agreement or how it relates to the proposed gas import route through Azerbaijan.