The mirage of Russian investment in Iran’s oil industry

According to the exclusive report of Energy Press, Peter the Great’s dream in the 17th and 18th centuries was to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf of Iran. A dream that generations after him seem to have.
Having the largest gas reserves, Iran and Russia have wide opportunities to participate in the global energy and gas markets. According to statistics, Iran and Russia together have more than 37% of the world’s gas resources. With 35 trillion cubic meters of gas, Russia has more than 19% of the world’s gas reserves. After Russia, Iran ranks second with 33 trillion discovered gas reserves and a share of 17.1%. Based on this, if there is cooperation between these two countries in the field of energy, we and our northern neighbor could take the pulse of the oil and gas market in our hands. But did this actually happen?
With the start of European sanctions against Russia after the start of the war with Ukraine, this country went to East Asia, including China and India, to find new energy customers. That is, the old customers of Iran’s oil and gas. That is, the two countries that were supposed to cooperate together, were placed in a competition field where we had to focus our attention on their sales and customers. A situation that forced Iran to sell its energy to its old customer, China, at very high discounts.
But Russia has not shown much goodwill during this time. His previous background and recent positions about the three islands, on the one hand, their opinions about the Zangzor crossing should also be added. The Zangzor Corridor is a concept describing a transportation corridor that, if implemented, would give Azerbaijan unhindered access to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through Armenia’s Sivnik province without Armenian checkpoints. This will permanently cut the borders of Iran and Armenia. In a broad sense, it is a geopolitical corridor that excludes East Azarbaijan province in Iran from the transit route of Turkey to Baku. This concept has been increasingly promoted by Azerbaijan and Turkey since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, while Armenia has consistently opposed it, stating that the “corridor logic” of the ceasefire declaration that was signed by the three parties at the end That war was signed, it is perverse and it is a form of propaganda. Recently, Russia also joined the supporters of the construction of this corridor, and its comments about the players in this arena were not in favor of Iran’s positions.