Iran's national gas company said it is facing collapse, the latest sign of deepening economic distress from international sanctions as Tehran seeks urgent relief in talks with world powers.

The chief executive officer of state-owned National Iranian Gas Company, Hamid Reza Araghi, said over the weekend that the company has declared bankruptcy, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency. The report said the company had a debt of 100 trillion rials, or about $4 billion.

The company tried to backtrack on the comments Monday. Majid Boujarzadeh, a spokesman reached by phone, denied it was bankrupt. But media reports also quoted Iran's oil minister, Bijan Zangeneh, as saying the gas company "is destroyed."

The sanctions, aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, have devastated the country's critical energy industry. While gas is a relatively small income generator, oil exports, a major revenue source, have been slashed by nearly half since the beginning of 2012.

"Iran's economy is out of breath," said Fereydoun Khavand, an economist and Iran expert based in Paris. "They've always had mismanagement, but they were able to ward it off with oil revenues. Now their pockets are emptying out fast."