Ukraine Ships Corn To Iran As Tehran Plans Sending Drones To Russia
A ship carrying 60,000 tons of corn has left a Ukrainian Black Sea port to deliver the first batch of the much-needed food to Iran since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A ship carrying 60,000 tons of corn has left a Ukrainian Black Sea port to deliver the first batch of the much-needed food to Iran since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Marshall Island-flagged Star Laura departed from the port of Pivdennyi on Friday, along with the Belize-flagged Sormovsky that left Ukraine's Chornomorsk port laden with 3,050 tons of wheat bound for Turkey's northwestern Tekirdag province.
While Ukraine has restarted its food exports to Iran, the Islamic Republic is said to have plans to export drones to Russia to be used during the war. The US Thursday that Russian officials have undergone training in Iran in recent weeks as part of an agreement on the transfer of drones from the Islamic Republic.
A total of 14 ships – most loaded with grain for animal feed or for fuel -- have now departed from Ukraine over the past two weeks, following the UN-brokered deal with Russia in Turkey to allow a resumption of grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, after they were stalled for five months due to the war.
As part of the UN deal, all ships are inspected in Istanbul by the Joint Coordination Centre, where Russia, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN personnel work.
Ukraine has some 20 million tons of grain left over from last year's crop, while this year's wheat harvest is also estimated at 20 million tons. Ukraine and Russia accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports and nearly a fifth of corn before February 24, when Russia launched its invasion.
Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr, who also serves as the head of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), told Fars news agency that converting the memoranda of understanding (MoUs), sealed between NIOC and Russian Gazprom cover various fields, including petroleum and gas swaps.
Iran and Russia in July agreed to $40 billion in trade and investment projects.
A swap means that Iran would import gas from Russia and deliver a certain quantity to another country that has a gas purchase deal with Moscow if it makes sense geographically or in terms of available infrastructure. In this case, among Iran’s neighbors only Turkey has a gas deal with Russia, but it has its own pipelines, much shorter in distance than a 2,000-kilometer longer route from Iran.
Buying Russian gas to cover shortages
This makes the Iranian claim of a gas swap strange. What appears to be more likely is Iran buying Russian gas to cover its own production shortages.
Russia, in turn, which has been buying gas from Central Asian countries as a middleman and exporting it, has a shrinking market after sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine. Existing pipelines that send the cheap gas from Central Asia to Russia can now be reversed and pump it to Iran.
Last year, Russia imported 10.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen and 4.6 bcm of Kazakh gas through these pipelines, according to BP statistics.
There are also two pipelines, connecting Turkmenistan to Iran's northeastern regions with 20 bcm/yr capacity together. Currently Turkmenistan delivers only 1.5 bcm/yr of its gas via these routes.
Fars news agency says Iran can import 20 bcm/yr of Russian gas for both domestic consumption and delivery to Iraq and Turkey.
It seems the first variant is feasible, because Iran had 250 mcm/d gas deficit last winter (equal to Turkey's total daily gas demand in 2021) and every year the gap between its gas production and demand is growing.
Fars says Iran has consumed 9 billion liters of diesel and 6 billion liters of mazut in electricity generation last year, due to gas shortage. Iran can consume Russian gas in power plants to be able to export more diesel and mazut, making more profit, if the Russian gas is below regional prices.
Russia helping Iran in gas production?
Fars reported that another important MoU between NIOC and Gazprom is related to pressure enhancement of South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, shared between Iran and Qatar.
In the absence of Western technology, Iran has been unable to keep up production at the field, steadily losing out as its domestic consumption has increased.
Fars said if the sides finalize the MoU and sign an agreement, the contract value would be $10bn.
According to the NIOC, the Iranian section of South Pars gas field would pass the half-mark point of its life by 2023 and every year its production would decline 10 bcm. Iran and a consortium headed by French Total signed a $5-bn contract in 2016 to develop the South Pars, including the installation of a 20,000-ton platform with two giant compressors to prevent production decline.
Iran needs at least 10 to 15 such giant platforms (15 times bigger than the current active platforms) in South Pars. Each new platform costs $2.5 billion.
It is not clear how Gazprom would enhance the pressure of the gas field as only large Western energy companies can build the giant platforms with huge compressors.
When Total left the South Pars contract due to US sanctions, Chinese CNPC also abandoned the project due to its inability to build larger platforms. Gazprom also has no experience or the technology for such a project in the sea.
Qatar installed huge platforms, through contracts with Western companies, especially Total, and not only prevented a decline in production, but it has started new drillings to increase gas output by 30% in the next five years.
Regarding Iran's inability to prevent production decline from South Pars - a field that accounts for 70% of Iran's total gas output- it seems the country eyes Russian imports to compensate for the decline in South Pars and prevent further gas shortages in cold seasons.
According to a document obtained by Iran International, the Swiss embassy in Tehran which represents US interests has officially informed the Iranian government of the lawsuit.
In June, Canada also announced that it has notified Iran of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice’s ruling that IRGC’s downing of Ukraine Airlines Flight PS752 was intentional.
In May 2021, some family members filed a civil lawsuit against Iran and senior officials they believe were to blame for the incident. Canada’s Ontario Court ruled that the downing of the plane was an intentional act of terrorism and on December 31, 2021, awarded compensation to be shared by the estates of the six victims.
In June, Canada's international human rights parliamentary subcommittee criticized the government's “passive” approach toward Iran’s widespread human rights abuses in a House of Commons subcommittee meeting attended by several political and human rights activists – including the spokesman of the Association of Victims' Families, Hamed Esmaeilion.
The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC on January 8, 2020, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. All 176 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians and 10 from Sweden, as well as 82 Iranian citizens on the plane died in the disaster.
