"Given the production capacities of Iran, we are ready to expand our relations with Russia in the oil and gas sectors," Qalebani said in Tehran on Monday.
"Given the age-old relations between Iran and Russia, the goal is to make the two sides acquainted with each other's capacities, specially in the oil and gas sectors, and given the fact that Russia has large oil and gas reserves, we can increase our relations with that country," he added.
Iran and Russia have vast cooperation in different fields, specially in political and economic spheres.
Earlier this month, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that the Russian banks are participating in schemes to finance Iranian oil exports, which are the target of US and European sanctions against Tehran.
"Large (banks) are not taking part. Small ones are, yes," Novak told reporters, in the first such confirmation by a top Russian official.
"Major banks are not involved as they have taken into consideration the possibility of any sanctions to which they might become subject".
Novak, who spoke after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Moscow, declined to name either the banks involved or the scale and nature of their possible financing of oil exports from Iran.
Salehi, for his part, said that Russian companies would be welcome to participate in developing the growing oil industry of the OPEC member state.
