Iran-Russia barter to begin next week

Russia will begin importing Iranian oil under a longheralded oil-for-goods barter arrangement in the coming week, Iran's oil minister was quoted as saying, more than a year after negotiations began.The Kremlin announced in April it had begun to implement the deal, in which Iran would export up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to Russia in exchange for goods of an equivalent value, but traders said they saw no signs of it.