Senior Iranian official Ali Akbar Velayati with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow, July 12, 2018

The Kremlin has pushed back the claim by a top Iranian official of a $50 billion Russian injection into Iran’s troubled economy.

Ali Akbar Velayati, the Supreme Leader’s senior aide, said after meetings in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and other officials, “Russia is ready to invest $50bn in Iran’s oil and gas sectors. Military and technical co-operation with Russia is of major importance to Iran.”

Velayati said a $4 billion deal with a state-owned Russian company, signed in March, “will be implemented soon”. He claimed, “Two other major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, have started talks with Iran’s oil ministry to sign contracts worth up to $10bn.”
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he could not confirm the comments.

Peskov’s statement pointed to Russian caution amid US withdrawal from the July 2015 nuclear deal and expanding American sanctions.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that implementation of a 2017 deal under which Russia will provide goods to Iran in exchange for oil is still possible.

However, Novak indicated that Russia will not provide the goods up front, “This is not the purchase by Russia and not by Russian enterprises.”

Instead, goods will be supplied as Russian takes in Iranian oil exports.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has said that $200 billion over 10 years is needed to develop Iran’s oil and gas sector.

But with the US threatening to punish any foreign business with American links that does business with Iran, Tehran is struggling to maintain, let alone increase, its exports.

Iran is resorting to more and more elaborate proposals to prop up production and investment. Tehran is now saying that Iranians can buy bonds to sustain the industry.

Analysts project that Iran’s oil exports will fall 40%, from 2.5 million barrels per day before the US withdrawal in May to 1.5 million bpd.
In the first half of June, Iran’s exports dropped 16% to just over 2.1 million bpd.