Tajikistan has started importing oil and petroleum products from Iran. Deliveries began in late August, the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources told Asia-Plus on September 24, without disclosing the volumes, prices, suppliers, or transit route.

The shipments followed August 15 talks in Tehran, where Energy Minister Daler Juma and Transport Minister Azim Ibrohim met Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad and agreed to set up a working group to prepare a long-term supply agreement. Dushanbe asked for up to 2.55 million tons a year (2 million tons of crude, 300,000 tons of diesel, 150,000 tons of gasoline, and 100,000 tons of jet fuel) along with discounted prices, dedicated tank-car trains, and a “green corridor” across Iran’s rail network.

The scramble is a product of Russia’s fuel crisis. Russia supplied 91.1 percent of the 599,500 tons of petroleum products Tajikistan imported in the first half of 2026, free of export duty. Tajikistan is not a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and Carnegie Politika’s Galiya Ibragimova described the cheap Russian fuel as “payment” for Dushanbe’s “political loyalty” to Moscow. But loyalty bought less fuel once Ukrainian drones began disabling Russian refineries, including the Omsk plant, which was knocked offline in early July.

Moscow has extended its diesel export ban month by month, most recently through October 31. Deliveries under intergovernmental agreements are exempt, but the carve-out has not kept Tajikistan supplied: diesel shortages began in June. By July, some stations were capping sales at 20 liters per vehicle and diesel had climbed to $1.40-$1.66 per liter.

In Tajikistan, domestic refining covers about 0.5 percent of gasoline consumption. Alternatives are scarce and expensive. U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28, and Iran’s subsequent restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz kept oil prices above $100 a barrel in September. Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are competing with Tajikistan for the same limited supplies from Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

Iran is an unlikely lifeline. Relations collapsed after Tehran hosted exiled Islamic Renaissance Party leader Muhiddin Kabiri in December 2015, months after Dushanbe banned his party as an extremist organization. In 2017, Dushanbe accused Iran of involvement in political killings during the 1990s civil war. The thaw came with the 2022 opening of an Iranian drone factory in Dushanbe and accelerated with President Masoud Pezeshkian’s January 2025 state visit, when the two sides signed 23 agreements. Bilateral trade reached $438 million in 2025, up 28 percent from the year prior.

However, Tajikistan and Iran don’t share a border. Moving 2.55 million tons of petroleum products by rail through third countries would take about 51,000 tank cars a year, according to Tajikistan’s Transport Ministry – roughly 140 a day. Iran may have little to offer beyond crude oil and jet fuel: Hamid Hosseini of Iran’s Union of Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters said gasoline and diesel exports were not under discussion because of shortages in Iran itself, and put likely shipments at around 5,000 tons a month. The requested crude also exceeds Tajikistan’s refining capacity. The TK-Oil plant in Danghara has a design capacity of 1.2 million tons a year but has long run below it for lack of feedstock; another Asia-Plus report put the country’s two refineries at about 500,000 tons combined.

Then there is Washington. On August 24, the U.S. Treasury launched Operation Economic Outcast, widening the range of Iran-related conduct exposed to secondary sanctions and promising every country a “defined timeline” to shut down Iran-related activity. A Treasury official told RFE/RL that anyone in Iran’s petroleum sector “incurs that risk themselves.” Edward Lemon of the Oxus Society noted that the modest scale of Tajik-Iranian trade may keep Dushanbe below Washington’s threshold of attention. The practical exposure likely lies with whichever Tajik banks settle payments for Iranian cargoes, particularly if they clear dollars or deal with designated Iranian entities.

Russia still supplies nine of every ten tons of Tajikistan’s fuel, and on available evidence the Iranian route is unlikely to change that this winter. But it gives Dushanbe a second supplier at a moment when Moscow cannot guarantee much, albeit at the cost of sanctions exposure that grows with every ton delivered.