TEHRAN (Dispatches) - Iran’s petroleum minister has hinted that the country is looking into the possibility of bringing in the French energy giant Total to develop a key project to liquefy natural gas for exports to Europe.
Bijan Zanganeh told reporters that serious talks with Total were underway over the development of Phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars natural gas hub.
Zanganeh added that Iran’s priority for exports of gas to Europe was to proceed with liquefied natural gas (LNG).
"Our priority is to export natural gas to neighboring states through pipeline.  And we believe that the best way to export gas to Europe is through LNG,” he told reporters after meeting Miguel Arias Canete, the European climate action and energy commissioner, in Tehran.  
Asked whether talks with Total over the development of LNG projects in Iran would continue, Zanganeh emphasized that "Iran would not reject that idea”.  
"Nevertheless, Iran cannot wait for investors indefinitely,” he emphasized.
Last November, Total signed a basic agreement, worth $4.8 billion to develop South Pars Phase 11 in cooperation with China’s CNPC and Iran’s Petropars. The deal made the French major the first Western company to seal a giant economic deal with the Islamic Republic after the lifting of the sanctions.
Phase 11 aims to produce 1.8 billion cubic feet a day of gas among other products.
Total has already announced that it would have to wait to see if the U.S. would renew sanctions waivers against Iran in June before proceeding with a final investment decision over the project in South Pars.
In early 2000, the company was negotiating with Iran over production of LNG from the same phase – a project that had been named as Pars LNG at the time. However, the plan was filed in 2011 after Total had to quit Iran as a result of international sanctions that banned investments in Iran’s energy projects.   
The lifting of the sanctions in early 2016 prepared the grounds for the return of international investors to the country. However, major players like Total that have high stakes in the U.S. will still have to wait for Washington to renew waivers on sanctions against investments in Iran.

OPEC, Non-OPEC States Support for Output Cuts
 Elsewhere, Zanganeh said OPEC and non-OPEC member states have indicated their support for extending a crucial agreement by world’s biggest producers to cut outputs.
"During these last days we received a positive signal from OPEC members and non-OPEC contributors in this agreement for cutting the production for extending this agreement for the second half of 2017," Zanganeh told reporters, according to media.
In December 2016, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reached a landmark agreement with Russia and other non-members to proceed with the plan and slash oil production by nearly 1.8 million barrels a day for six months starting January 2017.
The agreement exempted key member Iran from the plan, allowing it to increase its production by 90,000 bpd to reach pre-sanction levels of around 4 million bpd.
Nigeria and Libya were also exempted from the planned output cut due to internal conflicts which have already decreased their crude production.
The Iranian oil minister further said that the U.S. is mounting political pressure on international oil companies to dissuade them from investing in Iran's energy sector.
With 137.6 billion barrels of proven reserves, Iran has the world's fourth largest crude deposits. In terms of gas reserves, according to the 64th edition of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy released in June 2015, Iran is the world's top gas reserves holder with 33.8 trillion cubic meters.