Iran gas deal halted by French Firm

French energy giant Total announces no plans of investment in politically risky Iran

The company Total, once planning to come up with development ideas to work with the really big South Pars gas field, has decided that now is not the time to go ahead with such a decision. This report came straight from Christophe de Margerie. Such an announcement also came promptly after the Iranian series of missile test fires started after weeks of many rising tensions along with neighboring Israel and also the United States made it clear about their nuclear ambitions. Many analysts say that such a move by Total would mean a very big dent in the energy industry of Iran.

Implications of the Decision

As such, Iran is now going to have to find a way to go around this business of gas exports until a little bit later in the following decade, many analysts say. The United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also announced last Thursday that Washington would end up defending the interests of their nation as well as that of their allies from further attacks from Iran. This statement released by the Secretary of State was actually a firm response to the test missiles which were launched by the Iranians. Many sanctions are also made as a result. Total now has a memorandum of understanding along with the state-owned company called National Iranian Oil Company with plans to actually develop the eleventh phase of the Iranian’s half of the entire field of South pars in the Gulf.

Last May, Total also said that it has been very interested in being able to work together on such a project along with Petronas, which is actually a Malaysian company. However, the comments made by Mr. de Margerie has also resulted in some casts of serious doubts as to whether or not such a firm would end up investing any time in the future with this Islamic Republic. He was also quoted to have said that right now, we would end up taking a lot of political risk if they were to invest in Iran simply because many people will say that their company is a kind of company that would do anything and everything in order to generate money, and that such is not the kind of image they would want to project. This statement was reported to the leading newspaper the Financial Times.