Hassan Rohani and Ali Akbar Salehi
© AFPIranian President Hassan Rohani (left) walks with Iran's Atomic Energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Iranian news agencies are reporting that Iran and Russia have agreed to start building two nuclear power plants in Iran's southern city of Bushehr this month.

"Operations to build two new nuclear power plants in Bushehr will start on September 10 and it will take 10 years for the power [units] to be completed," Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on September 1, according to IRNA and Press TV.

Construction of the power plants will cost an estimated $10 billion, and when complete, they will save Iran about 22 million barrels of oil per year, he said.

Russia built the existing 1,000-megawatt reactor at Bushehr on the Gulf coast that came online in 2013.

In November 2014, it signed a "cooperation contract" to help build the two new reactors on the same site, along with plans to eventually construct nine reactors across Iran.

Under the deal, the total number of reactors at the Bushehr site could rise to five.