MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- 
Moscow and Tehran have reached a deal on 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas supplies a year, while Russia also pledged to fund construction of a new nuclear power plant in Iran, officials said on Friday.
The preliminary agreements came as the United States is looking to intensify its illegal sanctions on Iran unless Tehran agrees to a new nuclear deal favored by President Donald Trump.
From military cooperation to energy, banking and agriculture, Russia has deepened ties with Iran and signed a strategic partnership treaty with Tehran in January. 
Friday’s deal is seen as another step in their bid to remove barriers in all spheres of their cooperation.
Both countries are under Western sanctions and Moscow’s oil and gas exports to Europe have drastically declined.
Russia has a long history of cooperation with Iran and helped build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr in the south of the country, Iran’s first.
Iranian Minister of Petroleum Mohsen Paknejad has been on a visit this week in Moscow. On Friday he met Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev at an intergovernmental commission.
“Multilateral cooperation between Iran and Russia through membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, and OPEC+ has led to the provision of common interests, peace, stability, and international security, and I am confident that this cooperation will deepen,” Paknejad said.
Shana News Agency, citing Paknejad, said both countries agreed on a 55 bcm gas transfer agreement, while a new nuclear power plant in Iran would be constructed with financing from Moscow’s credit line.
“Iran and Russia will continue their cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the construction of new nuclear energy facilities and the completion of phases two and three of the Bushehr power plant using Russian funds,” he added. 
Despite holding the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia, Iran imports gas, including from Turkmenistan, for its northern provinces, freeing its 
own gas for domestic use and exports at better margins.    
“One of the areas of interest for both sides, in the first phase, is the import of gas from Russia, and in the second phase, the trade of gas through swap or transit to other countries,” Paknejad said. 
Tsivilev, speaking alongside Paknejad, said that Russia may supply 1.8 billion bcm of natural gas to Iran this year, at a price yet to be agreed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in January in the Kremlin, already said Russia may eventually supply up to 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year to Iran, though starting from lower volumes of up to 2 bcm.
A figure of 55 bcm would be similar to the throughput of the Nord Stream 1 undersea pipelines to Europe that were damaged by blasts in 2022 and have not delivered any gas since then.
Speaking on national TV earlier on Friday, Paknejad said Iran will sign a $4 billion agreement with Russian companies to develop seven Iranian oilfields.
He and the Russian minister signed a final document of bilateral agreements after a meeting of a Russo-Iranian economic cooperation commission, but the details were not disclosed.
Russian gas giant Gazprom signed a memorandum last June with the National Iranian Gas Company to supply Russian pipeline gas to Iran. Possible routes for the pipeline have not been disclosed.