Increasing Iranian oilfields’ recovery rate, as well as crude oil exploration and extraction are the most important areas of cooperation with Lukoil in the future, he said, the Iranian oil ministry’s official SHANA news agency reported Sept. 17.

The Russian company expressed readiness to implement enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and improved oil recovery (IOR) techniques in the Iranian fields, Zamaninia added.

The oil recovery factor in Iran is very low. Iran is able to extract just 20 percent (157 billion barrels) of its oil reserves on average. The current active fields lose about 8 to 13 percent of production volume.

In the meeting, the leading Russian company’s president further said that Lokoil is interested to buy crude oil and oil products from Iran, Zamaninia noted.

Tehran is producing about 2.8 million barrels of crude oil per day of which some 1.7 million barrels is consumed domestically.

It should be noted that Iran’s oil industry is familiar to Lukoil. The Russian company and Norway 's Statoil started developing the Anaran oil field in 2003 but pulled out in 2011 after the US and Europeans intensified sanctions on Iran. Statoil had a 75% stake and Lukoil held 25% in the Anaran block, where oil was found in 2005, Trend reported.

Lukoil president has earlier announced that his energy group would return to Iran as soon as the sanctions were lifted.