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Tehran offers to cooperate with Gazprom in Iran, other countries

TEHRAN, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - Iran has offered to cooperate with Russian oil and gas companies in exploring for new deposits, both on its own territory and in other countries, a deputy Russian industry and energy minister said Monday.

Ivan Matyorov is taking part in a session of an intergovernmental commission on Russian-Iranian trade and economic cooperation.

"Iranians believe that [Russian energy giant] Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] in particular is an effective world leader, and they would like to cooperate with it. Specifically, Iranian companies have extended their presence in Venezuela and Bolivia in this domain, and they would like to cooperate with Gazprom in these regions as well," Matyorov said.

He added that cooperation between Russia and Iran in the oil and gas sphere could be diverse, and not only in the form of joint ventures.

Matyorov said Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] could soon start developing deposits in Iran like LUKoil Overseas, the overseas oil and gas production arm of LUKoil [RTS: LKOH], which recently confirmed the viability of oil production at the Anaran deposit.

It was reported during the session that in the first nine months of 2006, Russian exports to Iran reached $1.3 billion, and that Iranian exports to Russia reached $200 million.

Russia's nuclear chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, who is leading the Russian delegation at the session, arrived in Tehran for talks on the completion of Iran's first nuclear power plant, a project worth $1 billion that Russia is building in Bushehr, in southern Iran.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is leading the Iranian delegation.

Iran has been at the center of international concerns over its uranium enrichment program, which some countries suspect is a covert program to develop nuclear weapons. But Tehran has consistently denied the claims and said it needs nuclear energy for civilian purposes.

Russia has consistently supported Tehran's right to nuclear power under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.