ISLAMABAD, November 15. /TASS/. Energy cooperation is a promising area of interaction between Russia and Pakistan, program director of the Valdai Club Oleg Barabanov expressed this view talking to TASS on the sidelines of the Margalla Dialogue forum in Islamabad.

"Cooperation between Pakistan and Russia in the energy sector has great prospects. So far, of course, we are at the very beginning of our trip, but there are already quite serious agreements to put this process on a regular, permanent basis," he said.

As the expert noted, a number of Russian large oil companies are interested in cooperation with Pakistan and there is also interest from Islamabad.

According to Barabanov, with due attention of both countries to interaction in the energy sector, Moscow "will receive another important partner and consumer of Russian energy resources in the non-Western world."

In April 2023, Pakistan placed an order to import 100,000 tons of Russian Urals oil. The republic called this batch a trial batch intended to test the ability of enterprises to process oil of this grade. In June, two tankers delivered 101,000 tons of Russian oil to the port of Karachi. Islamabad recognized the deal with Russia as commercially viable. The freight for transporting the oil to Pakistan was paid by Russia, and delivery took one month.

In October 2023, the Pakistani government allowed national companies to enter into direct commercial contracts with Russian oil exporters.