[noemon]

TEHRAN — The French energy giant Total has agreed to invest $1 billion in Iran to develop a huge offshore gas field, Iranian news media reported on Sunday.

03IRAN-01-master768.jpg (56.09 KiB) Viewed 721 times

The agreement, the largest by a Western energy company in Iran since the 2015 deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program, had been delayed in February as Total waited to see how the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran would proceed.

President Trump has spoken out against the multilateral nuclear agreement, and his antipathy toward the pact and talk of further sanctions has raised concerns among foreign energy firms looking to invest in Iran. But the administration has approved sanction waivers allowing deals under the nuclear agreement.

Total will take a 50 percent stake in the development of the 11th phase of the South Pars gas field, investing $1 billion into the $4.8 billion project, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday. The other partners are the China National Petroleum Corporation and the Iranian company Petropars.

Total is the first Western energy company to invest in a large infrastructure project in Iran since the nuclear agreement, and analysts say they expect other European companies to follow. Royal Dutch Shell, another energy giant, has signed several memorandums of understanding for projects in Iran, as have dozens of other companies.

“We are proud and honored to be the first international company to sign” one of Iran’s new oil and gas contracts, a Total spokesman said in an email.

Several multibillion-dollar airplane deals between the American plane maker Boeing and its European competitor Airbus had been part of the nuclear agreement. And the French carmaker PSA has committed $320 million to manufacture Citroen cars in Iran.

The Trump administration is undertaking a 90-day review of its policies toward Iran. At a meeting on Saturday in Paris, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said he was certain the Trump administration would make a change in the leadership in Tehran a priority of its Iran policy.

New York Times