Iran Focus
London, 16 Mar – An energy company in Iran has just signed a $742 million deal with Russian state-owned energy firm Zarubezhneft to increase production in two oil fields in Western Iran, which is making it pretty obvious why Russia is backing Iran’s malign activities.
At the signing ceremony of this deal, in Tehran on March 14, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namadar Zanganeh said: “Increasing the production from these two fields will bring some $4 billion dollars to Iran [over the next few years]”.
Russia’s support of Iran
While National Iranian Oil Company head Ali Kardor said that this was the first such deal between Iran and a Russian firm.
He said: “On the political front, relations with Russia are at the highest level, but in the economic sphere, they have not yet reached [the same level].”
Iran and Russia currently have a deep relationship, which includes them both working to keeping the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in power and Russia defending Iran at the United Nations for supplying ballistic weapons to the Houthi terrorists in Yemen in spite of two UN resolutions. It now seems crystal clear why Russia would want to keep Iran on side: money.
Russian oil firms are also under Western sanctions for its aggression in Ukraine, which is why they are turning to Iran.
Benefits for the Mullahs, not the people
This deal to develop the Aban and Paydar fields in Ilam province near the Iraqi border and increase production from 36,000 to 48,000 barrels of oil per day is certainly a boon for private Iranian company Dana Energy, but it’s not going to benefit the Iranian people.
Most companies in Iran that are looking for international trade are owned – at least in part – by members of the Iranian government or its security forces and this means that the money isn’t going to help the poor or fund hospitals. Instead, it will either be syphoned off into the private funds of the state member or be put into Iran’s ever-growing war chest to fund terrorism, regional aggression, suppression of the people, and the creation of weapons of mass destruction.
This deal comes as the US seems set to withdraw from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, which would re-impose US sanctions on Iran and force companies to choose between doing business with the US or Iran.
This is the second deal that Iran has signed with a foreign energy firm since the agreement came into force. The first signed with France’s Total for $4.8 billion in July.
