Iran has agreed to resume an oil swap deal with Kazakhstan some 10 years after the deal stalled due to technical and political problems.
Iranian Oil Ministry’s news service Shana said in a Saturday report that a final agreement had been reached on the restoration of the oil swap deal between Iran and Kazakhstan during a visit by Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi to the Kazakh capital of Astana, earlier this week.
The report cited a statement from Raeisi upon his return from Astana where he attended a major regional summit while he also held meetings with senior Kazakh government officials to discuss increased economic and trade ties between Iran and Kazakhstan.
Raeisi said the two countries had agreed to increase the volume of their annual trade to $3 billion. It was not clear how much the oil swap deal would affect the bilateral trade ties between the two countries.
Iran has been seeking an increased role in regional energy trade amid a global rise in demand for energy.
The country is in currently a natural gas swap agreement with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan while it is discussing a similar deal for importing natural gas from Russia and delivering the same amount of gas to unidentified Russian customers in the Persian Gulf.
Experts say swap deals can benefit Iran in various ways, including on transit fees and through lowering the costs of transporting energy to domestic consumption centers.
Senior authorities had said in July that Iran would engage in oil swap deals with Russia and Kazakhstan in line with a policy to improve its access to energy supply sources in various parts of the country.