Total signed a contract in 2017 to develop Phase II of South Pars field with an initial investment of US$1 billion, but the French company had said it would pull out unless it secured a US sanctions waiver
China’s state-owned energy major CNPC has taken over the share in Iran’s multibillion-dollar South Pars gas project held by France’s Total, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.
Total signed a contract in 2017 to develop Phase II of South Pars field with an initial investment of US$1 billion, marking the first major Western energy investment in the country after sanctions were lifted in 2016. South Pars has the world’s biggest natural gas reserves ever found in one place.
But the French company had said it would pull out unless it secured a US sanctions waiver, and Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said in June that if Total were to walk away, then CNPC would take over.
