France’s Total would have to surrender all of its investment if it ditches its deal with Iran to develop part of the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, Iran's oil minister told Iran's official energy news agency SHANA on November 21.

“If Total, without the enforcement of [UN] Security Council sanctions, announces it intends to leave the contract, no capital will be returned to this company, no sum will be transferred to the company,” Bijan Zanganeh reportedly said.

Total's initial investment in developing phase 11 of South Pars field—the largest gas field in the world, which Iran shares with Qatar—was set at $1bn when contracts were signed in July, although Zanganeh said that so far Total had pledged €56mn for the project, for which work was currently progressing as contractually specified. Iran sees the deal as a flagship project as it represents the first big investment by a Western energy major in the country since the nuclear sanctions were lifted in January 2016 in return for Tehran scaling back its nuclear development programme.

The French energy major issued a statement on November 21 that said it remained committed to Iran and was willing to move forward with the deal, but the company's CEO Patrick Pouyanne last week gave a television interview in which he said the South Pars 11 project would have to be reviewed if the US decided to place unilateral sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme. He pointed out that Total has substantial assets in the US.

The US Congress should by mid-December decide whether it is in favour of such sanctions following President Donald Trump's insistence that the nuclear accord—still supported unequivocally by the five other major powers apart from the US that signed it in November 2015—must be 'fixed or nixed'.

The South Pars 11 development deal gives Total a 50.1% stake, Chinese state-owned oil and gas company CNPC 30% and National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) subsidiary Petropars 19.9%.